


A Reckless Act of Domination and Intimacy

by the_heauxly_trinity



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Aborted non-con roleplay, Angst, Anxiety, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Denial of Feelings, Emotionally Constipated Armitage Hux, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Homophobia, Hux is Not Nice, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Kylo Wins, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Obsessive Kylo Ren, Past Child Abuse, Possible Character Death, Switch Hux, Switch Kylo, Xenophobia, complex sexual dynamics ok, onesided reylo in the DECIDELY past tense, the FinnRey is in Chapter Ten, they fuck but I'm not telling you when
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-03-04 19:59:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 110,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13372014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_heauxly_trinity/pseuds/the_heauxly_trinity
Summary: COMPLETE: After the death of Snoke and the Battle of Crait, long-time rivals Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and General Armitage Hux must cooperate or everything they value will self-destruct. Hux knows he is the First Order's last line of defense against a raging, uncontrolled monster, and he knows how little he can do to influence him... until Ren's pragmatic attempt to "learn more about him" presents Hux with what he believes is his only chance, unethical though it may be, to save his cause.The story of a boy named Kylo, and a boy named Armitage, and how with their love they saved each other from every bad thing that had ever happened to either of them.Believe it or not, this gets pretty dark.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> the-heauxly-trinity-ao3.tumblr.com
> 
> If I need to tag anything else, reach out with your feelings and lmk. Thanks to Omega Hux and Rev from the Discord for beta reading this chapter.

Ren had to know already what lay in the General’s mind. Could he not sense the hate? The rage? The desperation for the sake of the First Order’s survival?

“If we’re going to work together, I need to know more about you,” Ren had said.

But General Hux knew that Ren had brought him here to die, tormented by whatever he could drag out of his mind. Did he need to restrain the General in an interrogation chair? Did he need to slowly snap each metal ring shut around Hux’s wrists and head? Of course not. He could have held him to the floor by the same power with which he choked him hurled him into walls. He could have cut his breath short forever or snapped his neck. But he personally invited General Hux to the interrogation room on the _Finalizer_ , where the two of them had retreated after the Battle of Crait, knowing that Hux could not resist.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Ren. But Hux was afraid as he saw the gloved hand reaching for his forehead and the pale face framed by black waves of hair and a free fall of black cloth. The eyes – the dark eyes that did not turn away from his own, that seemed to look beyond the General – that could see all of the bruises since Hux was stripped of his greatcoat and his jacket, leaving only an undershirt and his jodhpurs – Hux could not keep looking at Ren, he had to squeeze his eyes shut and fold his lips in between his teeth or he would break before Ren even began. Being this close to him offended his sensibilities enough; there was little need for Ren to push into his mind.

But push into his mind he did, with a feeling like curtains being drawn back. Hux was the curtains, struggling to remain closed and keep the world within lightless, parted without their permission. “Where should we begin?” Hux heard Ren mutter from beyond the closed world he retreated into. He could hear the Supreme Leader’s voice, his own breathing, and his pounding pulse. Never had it beat this fast before… his arms and legs felt heavy and nothing else. They lost sensation, as if he had held his weight on them for too long. Perhaps his soul tried to escape his body before Ren could find it.

“You were a bastard.”

Where should he begin? At the beginning of his life, of course. As Hux tried not to think of his past, it bubbled past his will to the surface where it crested and dispersed. Both of them felt it – Hux felt it, Ren felt it, and Hux felt Ren feeling it.

“And you had your father killed.”

As with the first revelation, Ren noted Brendol Hux’s death with interest but not surprise. Both of them saw the method of assassination in flashes, which did surprise Ren. Hux expected him to address it.

“I killed my father,” Ren commented instead, as though it meant something.

_You killed Snoke_ , he immediately thought – but Ren did not give any indication that he felt it. “Do you want me to _pity_ you?”

“I pity _you_ ,” said Ren.

Squeezing his eyes shut was not working. The interrogation room slid back into focus. If he could look at one point, just one thing that was not Kylo Ren, perhaps he could anchor himself to reality and pull himself out of his memories, thereby pushing Ren out.

“Get out…!”

Nothing. The more he reached for the handle of the door, the further away it got. Ren pushed deeper and pulled his captive with him.

“He made you feel unworthy of him,” Ren observed. “He would not allow you to see your mother. You often wondered about her… you believed that she is likely dead… I agree with you…”

“S-s-ssst—”

“Armitage.”

“ _DO NOT!_ ”

The sound of his first name pushed a shriek out of Armitage Hux and tears out of his eyes. Ren moved between him and the door. There was no exit. There was only the Supreme Leader, looming over him and inside of him, with unyielding metal rings holding him down as he struggled to lash out at him. Treason be damned. Hux had been brought here to die, and with him the only chance the First Order had of looking up to a worthy Supreme Leader. Be that Hux himself, or Ren after learning to defer to Hux himself, it would end without him.

“ _Never_ call me by that name again,” he choked. “If you’ve brought me here to kill me, just… stop wasting your time, do it, kill the Order with me…” He had begun to rant. “…or have you brought me here to humiliate me? Strip me of my rank? How will you destroy me, and everything both of us value?!”

“I didn’t bring you here to hurt you,” said Ren. “I need you.”

To be anywhere else in that moment. Hux knew that it was true – Ren did need him. But did he think that Ren believed that? Hux had no choice but to act as though he did. If Ren had brought him here to kill him or destroy his spirit, he would. If not, Ren had to know that he did need him.

Hux raised his eyes to meet Ren’s. They must be reddened, which would only make the green in them greener. He noticed it about himself after not sleeping, once, and perhaps some weeping. The brown eyes casting shadows into him had nothing to say to him. Hux swallowed, sneered, and spat out, “I know.”

“Then don’t be afraid.”

What more could he search for?

“You were going to kill me… and… you still want to kill me.” Interested, but again not surprised. Hux expected to die at this point, but he continued to exist. Except for Brendol, what had he taken from Hux’s mind that he did not already know? He thought about Kylo Ren’s undoing and destruction every day. He had for five years. Ren had to have already known. He had no need of the excuse “treason”. He had a lightsaber and the infinity of space.

How anti-climactic.

“Release me,” Hux demanded.

“What are you trying to hide from me?” Ren asked, his voice barely above a whisper, as if he might disturb the order of Hux’s mind. “What don’t you want me to see?”

Immediately, the thing Hux never realized until that moment that he did not want Kylo Ren to see rushed up to meet Kylo Ren. So preoccupied he had been with his treacherous thoughts and Ren’s projected use of them as grounds for execution that he never thought of matters that the Supreme Leader would have (should have) no interest in.

He saw a man kneeling. Ren saw it. Hux saw that Ren saw it. He saw his open palm of his own hand striking across his face, then the back of it popping against his other cheek before he could right himself. He saw the man look up at him with rapture and gratitude.

“What’s this?” asked Ren.

Hux said nothing. He tried to think of anything else – all he could think of was that the man and most of the others who had been in his place were likely dead now. He remembered their faces, their names, their ranks. His lieutenants, his cadets, the technicians and cleaning staff… lashes across their backs. The memories of his boots, shining and black, measured weight against their chests. Hundreds of sharp slaps. Thousands of cold smiles.

“Stop,” he ordered Ren. “Stop, at once.”

“Why?” asked Ren, not so much as pausing in his drift through Hux’s thoughts. “I’m fascinated.”

Nothing in Ren’s voice hinted at mockery, disgust, or even the potential to leverage the knowledge against the General. Hux thought he could, as Ren said, sense fascination. Genuine curiosity. Ren’s brow had furrowed and his large, dark eyes noticeably narrowed. He nodded, once, slowly.

“Because those men have the right to privacy,” said Hux. “I swore that I would not disclose their secrets. They were devotees of the First Order – or I wouldn’t have treated them to such honors. Supreme Leader or not, you don’t have a right to…”

But he stopped, because both of them knew that Hux was lying. Not about swearing to guard the secrets of his submissives and Ren’s civil obligation to respect that oath, for he had, and Ren ought to, but they were almost certainly dead and it would do them no good now. He had lied about why Ren should stop. Another secret lay buried beneath the gallery of violence, one Hux had to protect for selfish reasons. Ren’s look showed his disapproval. Hux stared up at him in tight-lipped defiance. He would stand by his lie until Ren ripped it away – which he did with a muttered “Very well, General.”

Hux made a noise from a closed throat, a tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth, and gritted teeth. With no grasp on the Force whatsoever he tried to will Ren away from his mind. “Don’t look! I beg you – !”

But the very acts of begging and struggling uncovered what Ren searched for: A memory of the barrel of a blaster pressing to his cheek, of cold air stinging his bare chest, a strong hand grabbing his hair, and a deep, masculine voice.

“Useless,” muttered Ren. “Weak, useless boy…”

He repeated after the man holding Hux and shaking him in his memory, but frowned at the words that followed as though he found them distasteful.

“Why?” asked Ren.

“Get out of my head,” hissed Hux.

“No,” said Ren, and pushed onward.

If Hux felt Ren as an intruder inside his mind before, he felt him now as one felt the air. If someone tried to attack him in the material world, Hux would raise his arm to defend himself, as would anyone. The defenses of his mind would not rise. While before he could make his futile attempts to stave Ren’s power off, he now lacked the mental capacity to try – or the time.

What would it be like to submit? To be rendered truly defenseless not by force but by his own will and desire? To know that if he allowed himself to be destroyed, usurped, and eradicated in will, a will he rendered superior would replace it and fill him with new purpose?

“But you failed…”

Those were the only three words Ren uttered in the last stretch of his search for understanding. Hux and the only one he ever felt might be worthy of an attempt to command him had failed. Hux called the scene short, not because of anything wrong or any harm done, but because he simply could not make himself believe it.

When Ren withdrew, he could relax again. So many tears coated his pale face, which he knew had grown red and blotchy. Nobody had seen him like this since…

“That man,” said Ren, looking at Hux in sincere bewilderment. Even after plumbing the depths of Hux’s psyche, he could not understand. “He said the things that your father said to you. When you were a child. He called you useless and weak. Why would you… You are neither of those things. Both of you knew that. He was one of your men. He had to have had nothing but respect for you; they would do anything for you.”

How could he ever hope to explain? How did Kylo Ren make him feel _this_ many things at once? Such a child. Such a stupid, impulsive, irrational, whiny, obtuse child… Hux wanted to enjoy being alive, for he had accepted that the Supreme Leader had not brought him here to die and if he had, he was too fixated on the newfound riddle of Armitage Hux’s private life to kill him. But he could not enjoy being alive. In the moment, his conception of what he continued living _for_ became hazy around the edges and loose at its core.

“And he was old enough to be your father,” Ren added.

“You don’t say,” said Hux.

“You were never intimate with any of them,” Ren noted.

“I hadn’t noticed,” said Hux.

"You never let them touch you, at least. And you never really touched them. You never let yourself look at them."

Not even so much as one kiss in thirty-four years. Hux felt a dull sort of pride. "None of them held sufficient interest for me."

“You’ve never been intimate with anyone,” Ren went on, as though he might be leading somewhere with this line of conversation. “They wanted you to. They looked at you like they wanted you to.”

But Ren was not leading anywhere. He stared at Hux for several more seconds – Hux could feel the Supreme Manchild’s gaze boring into him. If he had felt holes seared into his shirt, it would not have surprised him. Hux stared at the ceiling. The tears waned. Ren wanted to understand him, and currently understood nothing. Armitage Hux would not die today. One step closer to saving the First Order from implosion.

In one swift, decisive motion, Ren leaned and released the restraints. Hux almost fell out of the chair. He had nothing left to hold himself up with. Ren caught him. Hux caught a whiff of whatever he smelled like – his musk? The material of his robes? When had he been this close to another human being? When had anyone supported him?

“Show me,” said Ren.

“Show you _what_ ,” Hux said, dully.

“Hit me,” said Ren.

“ _Absolutely_ not,” said Hux.

“But you want to hit me,” said Ren, re-adjusting his grip on Hux. “You’ve wanted to hit me for years. You were going to kill me in my sleep.” Although Ren seemed unphazed by Hux’s loathing, the idea of Hux killing him in his sleep did provoke a tone of restrained ire.

Hux groaned wordlessly. Even if it was him… even if the past few days were the most hellish of his life… those arms were so strong… he was so warm… “I _can’t_ right now. Are you insane? After what you've been doing to me?”

“I choked you,” Ren pointed out. “I threw you against the wall. I covered you in bruises.”

“Most of them are from Snoke.”

“I’m not sure whether or not I should apologize, under the circumstances.”

“I don’t care if you apologize,” muttered Hux.

“Alright,” said Ren, and didn’t. But he did not let go of the General, either. Hux neither resisted the embrace nor allowed himself to enjoy it. The embrace of a man who could best him was something he ached for, but not _this_ one. Choking and other such Force techniques aside, a perpetual teenager languishing in his angst could never be worthy of closing a collar around Armitage Hux’s neck. Laughable! At the same time, trying to fight off Crylo Whinge would only make his situation worse, he thought. His greatcoat, his jacket, and his assortment of personal weaponry lay in a pile against the wall. Hux was exposed and unarmed. Trying to fight could put him in a situation which was anything but laughable, given Ren’s fascination with this new paradox set in front of him and his tragic lack of comprehension regarding not only it, but literally anything else in the entire Galaxy.

His best option was to assimilate vague impressions of these sensations and repurpose them later.

“Armitage,” Ren whispered.

“ _Shut up_ ,” said Armitage.

“I know you were afraid,” Ren whispered again. “Even though I told you not to be. I didn’t bring you here to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. I need you.”

_Oh no_ , was Hux’s initial thought, given the unmistakable overtones of the situation – but he quickly realized that Ren meant he needed his military knowledge and the loyalty of his men. “Of course you do."

“I am willing to work with you,” said Ren. “Without Snoke, there is no reason for us to remain enemies. We want the same thing, we have the same vision of the Galaxy. We can help each other. We need each other. Between the two of us, we can wipe out the Jedi and the Resistance one and for all. I made mistakes. I allowed those who once claimed that they cared about me to exploit my emotions. It will not happen again. But I need your help.”

“I will believe it when I see it,” Hux replied.

“I shouldn’t have hurt you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Shhhhh…”

The Supreme Leader of the First Order _shushed_ him. And then he rubbed his back.

And the General accepted it, until he had his breath and composure back.

“Release me,” he told Ren. “We’re finished here.”

“I’ll let you go if you hit me.”

Hux refused to believe a word out of his mouth. Was this a trap? Would Ren immediately decry his audacity in striking the Supreme Leader and eliminate him? It could still be a trap.

_If he intends to kill me, he will kill me for striking him if I strike him, and for non-compliance if I refuse. If, as he claims, he needs me alive, then he will not kill me._

As Ren sank to the floor, he kept his arms around the General. How dare he try to force a gesture of affection! Only when his knees bore into the hard, uncovered floor and his full weight upon them did he let his arms fall to his sides. Hux looked down at him. Ren… had in whole something the other men who knelt before him had lacked in pieces. Those huge, brown eyes and full, beseeching mouth were new to him and could not go ignored. Ren was pretty. Undeniably. Hux acknowledged it, but it did not sway him.

_This is likely my only opportunity to hurt him._

The thought that he might not get another chance did sway him. Hux snapped the palm of his hand across Ren’s face. The sound fell on his ears as sharply as the blow did on Ren’s pale skin. Hux saw the split second of surprise, the flinch, and then he felt something push him back. Just as quickly, the same thing caught him and lifted him back up. The back of his hand crossed Ren’s other cheek. Hux grabbed a handful of thick black hair and forced him to look up.

“ _That_ is because you lost control,” he hissed.

“I know.” Ren’s voice cracked, but he did not look away.

“You asked me to hit you,” Hux went on. “And then you tried to push me when I indulged you.”

“I know.”

Hux struck him twice, once on each cheek, not as hard as the initial two strikes. He could do as he pleased. “No self-control… look at me, Supreme Brat.”

For the Supreme Brat had closed his eyes at the repeated strikes. The switch inside of Hux had clicked on as easily as it always did, as easily as it did the first time he accepted a man’s submission. One second, unsure and apprehensive of adventuring into new territory. The next second, no one had the right to question him. Hux shook him by his hair.

“You will never – _ever_ – raise anything against me again. I don’t want your apologies. I don’t care if you’re _sorry_.” Hux sneered the word. “You will never do it again.”

“A-alright – ”

“Do you know why?”

“Because I hurt y – ”

“No.” Hux grasped Ren by the jaw, his nails digging into his flesh. “Because nobody else is going to do this to you. Nobody else is going to bother with you. It doesn’t matter if you sit on your throne playing at being anything resembling a competent ruler. It doesn’t matter if you swing your little sword around and break your toys, you destructive, impulsive _animal_. All anyone sees when they look at you is an overgrown child, incapable of anything but taking. Taking. Taking. Is that what you are? Do you think you have anything to give?”

Ren’s eyes widened and his mouth moved as though he wanted to respond, but he had no idea of what to say. Hux had done nothing the way he had a responsibility to. Ren was uninitiated and naïve. If anyone else had offered himself, Hux would have handled him differently. Properly. But Kylo Ren was not someone to negotiate with, and Hux had the weight of the First Order on his shoulders. He smiled. Ren’s insecurity and confusion went from those brown eyes straight into the part of Hux’s brain that spurred him.

“Someone has to put a leash on you, you monster.”

The insecurity turned into fear and resentment, but Ren did nothing to stop him. The idea that nobody but General Hux would pull his hair and hit him was enough of a threat to control him. The idea that he might not need anyone to abuse him at all did not seem to occur to him.

Hux had a new boy.

“I can give you title you’ve worked for. I won’t use the Force against you again. But… but none of that is good enough for you,” said Ren. “You’ll take it, but you’ll demand more.”

“That’s right,” said Hux.

“You want me to suffer,” Ren realized. “It’s all I can sense from you.”

Hux’s fingers had made red welts rise on his face. Since the blows stopped he could think again. None of that. They began again, subdued next to the first few hits but doubtless painful against the marks and, more importantly, humiliating.

“Thank me.”

“Stop it!”

“Oh? Do you want me to stop?” Hux gave him a harder slap and waited. “Do you want this to end, Ren? Do you want me to walk away?”

“No! No. Thank you, General.”

“Thank me for what?”

“Thank you for hitting me.”

Hux could see those lips twist with distaste. He couldn’t meet Hux’s eyes as he said it, but he said it. Good. “Look me in the eye. Thank me for indulging your request, even though you’re a silly little boy who doesn’t know what he wants.”

Ren scowled. Hux raised his hand but found it held back by unseen power. Ren forced his other hand out of his hair and stood.

“No,” he said.

“Very well,” said Hux. His hands returned to their customary spot behind his back when Ren let go. “I hope you’re satisfied. Have I sated your curiosity? Do you understand now?”

“No. I don’t understand.”

Hux said nothing, because he recognized what he saw before him. He had seen this body language before: the tense posture, the weight shifting from foot to foot, the clenched fists, the darting eyes. All he had to do was wait.

“You can’t make me say that,” said Ren, after a moment.

“Hand me my things,” said Hux.

Ren looked at the pile of Hux’s belongings on the table. Hux saw the muscles of his face tighten.

“Let me try again.”

“I don’t have time to waste on you,” said Hux, keeping his smile restrained to a small, cold one. “Give me my belongings.”

“I won’t falter again,” said Ren, trying to sink back to the floor.

“Did I give you permission to kneel?” Hux asked, dripping with exaggerated indignation.

Ren quickly straightened. “No.”

Hux let him stand there, looking not unlike how he had on Crait. Like a stupid, confused, mildly distressed puppy. As much as he wanted to smile, Hux had to let the shame and anxiety sink into Ren before he spoke again.

“Do you want me to stop?” asked Hux.

“No…”

“Then I will tell you how this is going to work. It’s obvious that you have never thought anything through in your life, and you clearly don’t know what you want out of it. You cannot think for yourself, Kylo, and henceforth I will do the thinking. I will make the decisions. I will tell you what is going to happen, and you will be thankful for it. You will not question me. You will not contradict me. You will not protest. Or I will gather my things and go on my way. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, _Sir_.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Take off your top.”

This was not negotiation. There would be no negotiation. He had no time to establish rules and protocol. There would be no contract. There would be no safeword. There would only be Armitage Hux, his abilities, and his duty to protect the First Order from its Supreme Leader. He watched Ren toss his tunic and gloves over the interrogation chair, revealing… him. Oh, _him_. All of _that_ , wasted on someone who never mentally progressed past the age of thirteen. Tragic.

“I am going to grab you by the hair,” said Armitage Hux. “I am going to put my gloves back on first because I could _feel_ last time that you haven’t _washed_ it, you wretch. Nonetheless, I am going to grab you by the hair, drag you to your knees some ten paces hence – ” Hux glanced towards a small table with two chairs, left in the interrogation room for the use of the First Order. “ – and I expect you to grovel. You had better do it to my liking, because I reserve the right to leave at any time. You are going to show your newfound dedication to my will, and how _sorry_ you are – ” The way he sneered the word made Ren’s lips purse. “ – by cleaning my boots. Finally, you will bend over that interrogation chair and I will do to you what someone – anyone – ought to have done to you years ago.”

He kept the conclusion ambiguous on purpose. Hux saw Ren’s eyes widen, but in excitement, dread, or disbelief he couldn’t pinpoint, and ultimately it would not matter.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” said Ren.

“Bring me my gloves,” said Hux, then added, “And my coat.”

A symbol of his authority, to be sure, but in truth the chill of a spacecraft’s interior reached Hux’s bones faster than it would most people. Ren seemed to need a moment to remember how to move. He jerked toward the pile of Hux’s things on the small table. Hux could easily have gotten them himself, but why do that when he could tell Ren to perform the menial task?

“You didn’t pull them to you,” he murmured, taking his things from Ren. “You put one foot in front of the other, like one of the commons who lack the _only_ thing that makes you remotely special or useful.”

No backtalk, and no sign of disagreement on Ren’s face. Not what Hux expected.

“But,” he went on. “Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps you simply haven’t had the opportunity to try everything life has to offer. Perhaps you’re good for something else…”

He let Ren think about it while he pulled the greatcoat on. The more he could offer Ren, the more incentive Ren would have to let him take the reins outside of this interrogation room. Tease the idea of sex, but don’t let them earn it. Withhold that satisfaction indefinitely. Make them feel like they’re not worthy – not that any of them were ever worthy, but Hux made sure they _knew_ it. He had been using that trick for years. Not one of his partners had he ever slept with, not so much as kissed or held – but they all wanted it. He could hear it in the way they spoke to him, see it in their eyes, read it from the way they so eagerly degraded themselves at his suggestion… they had all wanted to be his favorite. They all thought they could get there by begging Hux to give _them_ more of what _they_ wanted in the first place. Hux regarded them all with equal disdain.

And now they were all dead, probably.

He realized that for some seconds he had the greatcoat on, and that he had been looking at Kylo Ren with the same cold disdain because in Hux’s mind, Ren had already put himself in the same category as Hux’s deceased adorers. Prettier, yes. By far. Beauty was beauty, no matter how unfairly. No-one as repulsive as Ren deserved his gifts, and yet there he was. Beautiful, and the most powerful weapon Hux would ever wield, potentially. But that was all he had over the others, and Hux would never let him know it, and it was far from enough to earn him Hux’s favor.

Kylo Ren had been looking at Hux with an expression that quivered slightly. It twisted into a grimace of pain when Hux slapped his gloved hand into Ren’s hair and grabbed a handful in one movement. His knees buckled when Hux tugged down and he crawled without resistance. Perfect.

Seated in the chair, Hux met Ren’s eyes. An icy staredown to establish dominance, no movement of his thin lips to betray any emotion… his grip on Ren’s hair, keeping his cheek pressed against the stiff folds of fabric over Hux’s knee… he had done this many times. But this was not some weak-jawed cadet seeking greater structure, not some rough mechanic in need of catharsis, this was Kylo Ren. Ren, with whom he had a private five-year war. Ren, who had thrown him into the wall, as much as Hux claimed not to care, and who invaded his mind. Ren, who cowered and hunched with his palms flat on the metal floor between Hux’s spread legs, who looked up at him with those huge eyes so full of desperation and ignorance and so empty of any virtue a man could possess. Hux’s lips did betray his emotions, because he had never felt these exact emotions before. He had not known they could exist. He smiled. Ren inhaled sharply.

“The mighty Kylo Ren,” he tutted, tugging the handful of hair toward him. Did he turn Ren’s face toward his thigh, or did Ren do that? His lips pulled against the fabric. His eyes fell shut, slowly, and looked up at Hux again when Hux stopped pulling him in. “This is the Supreme Leader of _my_ First Order,” Hux whispered. “This is the son of darkness. This is Vader’s heir. This is an empty-headed, wide-eyed prettyboy who drops to his knees on my command.”

“Yeah…”

It was not a Yes, Sir and anyone else would have felt an immediate slap for such insolence. But anyone else would not have his lips pressed against Armitage Hux’s inner thigh. Parted. Smeared, really. Hux saw his tongue lap out – the slut! The undisciplined, unguided common slut _groaned_. He wanted it. He wanted _anything_. How would it feel, to strip him of all dignity and give him nothing in exchange but the gift of disgrace?

_Are you a little slut, Kylo?_ something inside him wanted to ask. Something inside him wanted to ask that, tap a finger against his cheek, then shove that stupid face right into his crotch, watch the eyelids flutter and watch Ren fight with himself not to cling.

Armitage Hux did not commit reckless acts, especially not ones that should be reserved for someone who deserved them.

“Are you trying to distract me with this, Kylo?” he asked. “You’re supposed to be cleaning my boots.”

The slut did not respond, only looked back and forth between the General’s face and his crotch. Hux shook his head and released the grip on his hair.

“I see,” he continued. “You think that you can lure me into giving you what you _want_ , rather than what you _need_. You _need_ someone to put you in your place. You _need_ someone to establish his authority over you. But that isn’t what you _want_.”

Kylo had every right to think that he could, considering that he nearly had.

“Can you look me in the eye and say that you can conceive of me doing such a thing?”

Kylo could look him in the eye well enough, but by now he could not _say_ anything at all.

“Hmph. You can’t say anything. Most of the others could still speak, if they were in your position. You’re weak, Ren. You won’t win my favor like this and you won’t win _me_ , either. But it’s not about _me_ , is it? You simply wish not to crawl back into your bed alone…”

He seemed to crumble against Hux’s leg, leaning into it and slumping against the chair. Hux had hit a nerve. The Supreme Leader had likely crawled into his bed alone every night for almost three decades – not much different from Hux, but Hux didn’t have some bizarre, pathological need for other people. Hux pushed him away. He wordlessly shifted so his face was pressed against Hux’s boot. No arched back or attempts to make boudoir eyes. Perhaps Hux had driven home his point that Ren would not seduce him.

“You sought to use me. I have so generously allowed you to experience being treated exactly as you deserve, and you repay me by trying to use me.”

Hux brought the back of his other boot to rest on Ren’s shoulder and dug in.

“Lick my boots, you idiot. That’s what you’re here for.”

That, and nothing more. Ren did as he was told. This hulk of a man, huddled at his feet, wincing under the dig of Hux’s heel into the meat of him… But Ren had never licked a boot in his life. He had no idea that such things were done at all. He gave an admirable enough attempt at proper groveling (for a novice) but he had the audacity to kiss first the top of the boot, then Hux’s ankle, then up his calf… Hux pushed him back down with his foot.

“I’m not your _lover_ ,” he spat. A perpetual moody teenager like this would think a word like _lover_ , wouldn’t he, so Hux used it. A few seconds later, however, Hux saw him starting to crack. Ren’s body, for all its solidity, began to tremble. First-timer. Of course he cracked. Hux had no obligation to show mercy in these circumstances… but he did.

“Up,” said Hux, removing his boot from Ren’s back. “That was decent. I still reserve the right to leave at any time if you dip from decent to unsatisfactory. Nod if you understand.”

Ren pulled himself up onto his knees with his palms pressed to the floor again. Hux realized he was doing this to keep himself grounded. He was crying. He had been crying for some time; those tear tracks were not all entirely fresh. He also saw a wet spot on his boot that might not have been left by Ren’s tongue. He either nodded or happened to incline his head in a way that might hide his shame before thinking better of it.

“Are you sure?” asked Hux, and Ren definitely nodded the second time. If Ren wanted him to stop, he could attempt to say so, or throw one of his fits. Neither of those things happened. The threat of losing Hux’s attention was greater than the threat of whatever Hux was going to do to him next. He smiled. “Very well. You’re going to bend over that interrogation chair now, Kylo. I think you should crawl to it.”

Kylo could not have stood to walk. Hux watched, one knee over the other and hands folded in his lap, as the brute pulled himself across the floor and over the chair. The chair remained in its upright position through the interrogation, which meant Kylo could only grab at whatever metal handholds he could find and try to bend over. Hux chuckled.

“Silly boy, you’re bending over nothing and holding the chair. That’s not what I told you to do.” Hux pressed one slim, gloved finger to the button that tilted the chair back. “That’s not the best position for a spanking. Not in my experience.”

He heard Kylo exhale. No ravishment for him. He must be aching with disappointment, thought Hux. Any chance to deny the little bastard. Hux watched him drape his body over the chair and grip the other side, arms folded next to him. Kylo turned his head to the side to press his cheek to it. This time, Hux did not resist the temptation to run a fingertip over his cheek. He might regret that, but as he watched the humiliation settle on Kylo’s face at his condescending gesture, he doubted it.

The first strike made him flinch and re-adjust himself so his head hung off the side of the table and he could look down. Hiding more tears, thought Hux.

“Oh? Did that _hurt_?”

Hux knew it hadn’t hurt, and he knew the next few didn’t either. He knew how to make spanking hurt. The way to do that was not to use one’s gloved hand through the recipient’s clothes, first of all, but he must not shove Ren into unfamiliar territory. It would ruin his plans in the long term.

“Did it hurt? Answer me!”

“Not really, Sir…”

“Then why did you flinch? Why are you trying to hide those tears?”

“I… I-I don’t…”

“Because you’re _weak_ ,” said Hux, punctuating the word with a smack right in the middle of Ren’s behind. “Even this overwhelms you. You’re a frightened, confused _child_.” Another. “You need to be told what you want. You love this. Say it.”

“I love it when you hit me, Sir…”

Something happened. Something compelled Hux to growl and press his hips to the tightly-drawn fabric he had brought his hand down on. But once he was there, he knew why he was there, and he reached around Ren to take down his pants. He learned that Ren did not wear undergarments. One less barrier for Hux to use to acclimate him to being spanked. His loss. Ren should have thought of that sooner.

He avoided looking at anything too critical. Anything Ren might be compensating for would be delicious to laugh at, but Hux must not give him ideas before they reached a certain level of role establishment and discipline.  But he did find himself admiring how the curve of Ren’s backside had gone slightly pink with the first round of spanking. The man’s breath had become sharp, erratic.

“Someone’s nervous,” Hux cooed with a cloying false concern. “Are you _afraid_ of your spanking, Supreme Leader? Oh, you should be…”

He squeezed. He caressed the small of Ren’s back – damn it, he had to stop with those gestures. Nearly _humping_ him was over the line. Almost pressing Ren’s face into his crotch should have told him to dial everything back. Hux could not afford to stop, and he could not afford to address and dismiss his errors in judgment. Reckless acts of domination and intimacy, one might call them.

Hux pinched. Ren almost squeaked. Hux smirked. Yes. Good.

A spanking had not begun, Hux knew, until the recipient wished it over. Ren did not take long. Snoke used to show him the same violence that he did Hux, but so unused was Ren to physical touch, let alone beatings, that not only Hux’s right hand raining a flurry of slaps down on him but also his left hand squeezing his lower back and the sides of his waist made him tremble. The sobs broke through his pride. Exhilarating. Hux threw his gloves to the floor. He struck, then grabbed, squeezed, dug in his nails… watched Ren’s flesh ripple and bounce at his hand, his will, his command, Ren was his, Ren was caught in the spell of submission and Hux would sit on his throne and grab him by the hair and look into those eyes while those lips wrapped around him and those tears fell down his face and Hux would _laugh_ –

He stopped.

Hux had broken skin when he scratched him, but nowhere else. He could have gone much further. He could still go further, until Ren would need treatment for the marks. But this was only the first time… and yet, he thought things that none of his submissives made him think… was this the Force? Ren sniffed. Hux told himself that it had to be one of his tricks. But he knew the truth.

“…sufficient.”

Hux withdrew himself and retreated to the table to dress himself again. Ren must not see his face. He heard Ren fall to the floor but did not turn around until he was dressed.

“I’ll be going now,” said General Hux. “I hope you’ve developed a better understanding. You look as though you have. Tch.”

Kylo had slumped from the interrogation table to the floor. He lay on his back, knees bent up and arms stretched out on either side of him. His chest heaved. He looked not at Hux, but at the wall, like it held the answer to the question _what now?_ “No,” he slurred. “I order you to escort me back to my quarters once I’m ready.”

“You don’t have quarters,” Hux reminded him. Aboard the _Finalizer_ , he didn’t. “Unless you’ve chosen temporary ones. Supreme Leader.”

Kylo paused. “I order you to wait for me to escort you back to your quarters.”

Damn it. Kylo remembered that he held a _rank_. Hux turned his back as Kylo dressed himself. He scowled. Aftercare, the thing he did as contracts demanded but never invested himself in. Physical contact. Emotions. Other people. Time, just wasted on the frivolity of making sure another adult was capable of making his own decisions in retrospect. Hux had neither the talent nor the inclination for it, but what had to be done had to be done. Normally, Hux would point them to the shower and the first aid and give them a “satisfactory performance” and a bottle of water once they were out.

Hux stood as stiff and unapproachable as ever, hands clasped behind his back. Ren had always had that disheveled look about him, but… did Hux detect a difference? Was he the same Kylo Ren he had been? Other than some redness in his eyes… No, Hux could not say.

He escorted Ren back to his own quarters in silence, side by side. Thankfully, no-one crossed their path. Hux knew he “ought” to offer Ren his arm, or his entire person, for support. He still had the wound on his side, in addition to the experience they had mutually just dragged him through. But he would not. Hux must not. He was not Ren’s lover.

“Here are my quarters,” he said when they reached his quarters. “Thank you for your escort, Supreme Leader, but I’m capable of seeing myself in.”

“Put in the code,” said Kylo.

Hux rolled his eyes and his shoulders slumped from their immaculate holding, because he knew where this was going. Sure enough, Kylo followed him inside and looked around his quarters, at the sleek, minimalistic elements with their sterile silver trim that Hux used to compose his tiny inner life.

“I like it,” said Kylo.

“I don’t care,” said Hux. “You’re free to leave whenever you wish. I can take care of myself, and I trust you can as well. You know how to call a med droid, right?”

“Please don’t make me leave.”

Kylo took a step closer to Hux. One was all it took. He curled his fingers around Hux’s lapel.

“I can’t make you do anything,” Hux said, with a searing kind of wistfulness.

“I’ll leave if you yell enough,” said Kylo. “But please don’t. Not right now. I don’t need a med droid, I need…”

Hux exhaled loudly through his nose. Kylo’s request was completely within the realm of reason. He still detested him, but… but he had to build what he could only call a _relationship_. It had to be one, or his plan – his only foreseeable chance at salvaging the First Order’s leadership – would fall apart, and Hux would be left on shakier ground than the impending _avalanche_ where he began. Kylo had something Hux wanted. Hux had something Kylo wanted. To get what he wanted, Hux had to give in return.

_Shudder_.

“You may stay,” said Hux. “If you’re so afraid of sleeping alone in your new room.” _You child_. “I will sleep on the couch.”

“Your bed is huge, though,” said Ren. “The couch lacks heating functions of any kind. I saw you in that interrogation room. You’re tiny. You’ll freeze. Look at your couch, even the color of it could freeze you.”

_Sigh_.

“You will polish my boots tomorrow in exchange for being allowed to stay in my quarters.”

“But I just cleaned – ”

“ _Properly_ , you ignoramus.”

“Okay,” said Ren, although Hux suspected he knew nothing about how to polish boots.

“Thank me,” he said impatiently.

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

Hux paused. “And you will not touch me.”

“I will not touch you,” said Ren.

“I want you to know that I don’t believe that,” said Hux.

“I know,” said Ren.

Of course. Ren could sense his feelings. What nonsense, Hux had thought in the past. He didn’t have any _feelings_ to sense. What mysticism, that should have been left buried or burned on the surface of a planet when sentient beings rose to live among the stars. _Thoughts_. Ren could somehow read his _thoughts_.

Some time later, they lay in Hux’s over-large bed, Hux on his back looking into the pitch black void above him and Kylo curled on his side facing Hux. Hux could feel him, radiating heat of a different kind than the coils beneath him. He could feel him _staring_.

“You killed Snoke,” said Hux.

“I killed Snoke,” said Ren.

Silence again.

“How?”

“How did I kill him?”

“Yes.”

Kylo shifted in the bed. “He had g… the girl’s lightsaber next to his throne. He was holding her down in front of me. He told me to kill her… I turned her blade toward him, and activated it.”

“And it… cut him in half.”

“Yes. It cut him in half.”

“We haven’t examined any of the artifacts on his person. They might be of interest to you. I doubt anyone else will have any use for them, but you might, and you are the Supreme Leader. Any time you feel the whim.”

“I know what to look for,” said Ren. “The only reason I haven’t yet is because you were a higher priority to me. We need each other now.”

“Excluding the fact that I _can’t_ really,” said Hux. “Can you think of a reason I _shouldn’t_ put a knife in your back the second it’s turned?”

Ren answered without hesitation: “You wouldn’t know what to do with the Galaxy once you got it.”

Hux drew in his breath. “I – !”

“More of the same? Eternal conquest? Order, for the sake of order?”

“Order, for the sake of preservation!” Hux sat up. “For the sake of the Galaxy itself!”

“No.” Ren propped himself up on one elbow. “For the sake of improvement.”

Hux still could not see him in the dark, but he thought he could tell where Ren’s face was and he looked in that direction. Ren was correct, of course. No philosopher lived in Armitage Hux. No visionary with grand social designs. What would he do with the Galaxy once he got it?

“Well, what do _you_ intend to do with it?” he asked.

Ren paused this time. “I can’t tell you yet.”

Hux barked out a laugh. “You don’t know either!”

“No,” said Ren. “I haven’t worked all of the details out… and I don’t trust you enough. Not right now.”

Fair enough. Hux had just asked for a good reason not to jam a knife between his ribs. Unarmed and in bed he could do nothing. There was the blaster in his nightstand, but he would have to get the thing out. He could wait for Ren to go to sleep, but… no! No buts! He could wait for Ren to go to sleep! This was his chance!

“My faith in the girl might have been misplaced,” said Ren.

“What _faith_?” asked Hux, surprised out of his plot for a moment.

“I asked her to stay with me. To rule the Galaxy at my side.”

_Something_ flared up in the pit of Hux’s stomach that he lacked a name for.

“She said no,” Ren added.

“I gathered,” said Hux. “You have no need for a girl like that. Think no more of her. We will destroy her. We will destroy the entire Resistance.”

“You’ll help me?”

“Yes. I will help you.”

“Why didn’t you kill me on Crait?” Kylo asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“What?!”

“On Crait,” Kylo repeated, sitting up in full. “I was alone. You had our full arsenal at your disposal. You could have ordered them to fire every gun we had on me. I couldn’t have escaped. I would have died. But you didn’t do that. Why?”

Hux did not have a real answer. It hadn’t occurred to him. He opened and shut his mouth a few times in the dark. “I – I – You knocked me out,” he said. “When you threw me. I have no memory of this missed opportunity. I was unconscious.”

“No, you weren’t.” He leaned close, able to draw himself right next to Hux’s ear without touching him. “If you were going to kill me,” he said softly. “You would have killed me on Crait. That’s why I can sleep in your bed. Neither of us has anyone left. I know you think you don’t need people. But you and I need each other.”

Hux let out the breath he had been holding. The darkness, the imbalance of power, the soft voice in his ear telling him sternly what he wanted and what he needed… his thoughts inevitably turned to a place they rarely turned, to the longing he could never shake but never satisfy.

Was it Ren? Was Ren the man he had sought? No, Hux had just… just a few moments ago, he had Ren licking his boots and crying… it couldn’t be him…

But what would it be like? So different from how Hux played the game. Like the voice in his ear, but more, further, with Ren invading not only his body but his _mind_ …

He jumped when he felt something over his hand. It was Ren’s hand.

“How thoughtless of me,” said Ren

“You did that on purpose,” Hux hissed.

“Yeah,” said Ren, laying his other massive hand on Hux’s shoulder. Hux felt like he might crush it. “This, too.”

Was he going to kiss him? Hux didn’t know what he would do if Ren kissed him now – but the full, soft lips only pressed against his cheek before Ren let him go and laid back down. Hux all but _fell_ back down, only for Ren to pull him against his chest.

“Things can be different now,” Ren murmured. “I’ll show you. Snoke is gone. It doesn’t have to be the way it was, Armitage. I won’t hurt you again, you won’t work against me again, we’ll work together…”

Hux’s head spun. What did Ren think their story was about?! But he realized it did not matter. Whether he needed Ren for the sake of the First Order, whether he could kill him… none of that mattered now, because he had wanted Ren to kiss him. He wanted Ren to kiss him even now, and keep calling him by his first name. He wanted Ren to drag him to depths that he thought impossible. The desire would not leave him.

Too late, he realized what it had all really been about. Kylo Ren was the one wielding a new weapon. But no, Hux was not a weapon, when he thought of it. He was a shield. Ren had a shield in Hux. Hux had a sword in Ren. Both of them had profited. They had to cooperate. They needed each other.

“Good night, Armitage.”

“Good night. Supreme Leader.”


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is power?

The following morning, Armitage Hux awoke with the stifling knowledge of just how much he had to do.

Not the _quantity_ of things he had to do. His usual agenda had only two additions – then again, in the wake of the power shift within the First Order, his usual agenda had yet to restructure itself into his new usual agenda. But the magnitude of the two things crushed him before he could try to sit up in bed. Kylo Ren had already awoken. Hux lay in bed alone. Although thankful for the reprieve from Ren’s presence for a number of reasons, he might have gone anywhere and done something foolish. Hux looked at the chronometer next to his bed and saw that it read 0936.

_0936?!_

Hux sat bolt upright and snatched the chrono up. He stared at the glowing red numbers in disbelief, then pinched himself. No, it was not a dream. Hux seldom experienced his dreams this way. He almost never slept long enough to have dreams at all, and if by some chance he did he certainly did not sleep _in_. He had too much to do. Sleep was a luxury for the irresponsible louts he had to wrestle the future away from. When had he fallen asleep? When had they gone to bed? How long had he lay in Kylo’s strong, secure –

Ahem. Hux put the chrono down.

“Ren!” he called. “Are you still here?”

“In here,” said Ren from the other room in the suite.

He found Ren seated on his couch wearing only the black pair of pants he arrived with the night before and eating actual food. Always demanding special treatment. Always putting himself above others – but not Hux, in this case. Fare like this befitted those of their stations, yet it seemed different to Hux: Ren demanding proper food for himself versus to Hux earning proper food as per his contributions to the First Order.

There was enough of it for two people. Ren had thought of someone else, for once in his life – but only once, because he set his cup of water on the low table in front of Hux’s couch without using a coaster.

“I got you breakfast,” he told Hux.

Hux grunted and went for the offered thermos first. He opened it and found that it contained Tarine tea - his preferred tea. Ren knew which one to get. It did occur to him that Ren might have poisoned it. He almost hoped. There was only one thermos and it was full and untouched. Ren must not partake. Maybe if he did, thought Hux, he could get some wits about him.

“I have something to attend to today before… before the funeral,” he said, clutching his robe about his person. Ren knew whose. “You said you would polish my boots. I intend to hold you to your word.”

“Just show me how. _General_.”

Hux tried not to exhale too loudly through his nose. “You will not _General_ me in such a tone of voice. It’s Sir. We keep the two titles separate.”

“I understand,” said Ren. “Just show me how, Sir.”

Ren _knew_ his title was to be _Sir_ in situations like these. Of course Ren would want to misuse his rank and title. Of course Ren would try to blur the lines, try to ensnare him in something “deeper,” as he was sure Ren would put it. Unfortunately for him, Hux never did “deeper”. He lacked the ability.

Always expecting special privileges. Always pushing to see what he could get away with. Always looking, Hux reminded himself, to use Hux’s mind against him. They played two different games. Hux knew Ren’s. He had met others like him. Ren would learn Hux’s, and then he would learn his place. Hux could not achieve his ends quickly. He would have to keep playing along with Ren.

He wondered if Ben Solo had always been like this in his old life.

He wondered if “Ben Solo” would still be a dirty word in this new regime.

Once he had the Supreme Leader occupied with the polishing of his boots, Hux had to see to one of his unpleasant tasks for the cycle. He stole a last glance at Ren’s bare back and his arms working away… what would Ren do if Hux approached him from behind and pulled Ren’s head back to rest against his thigh? If he let his cold smirk rain down on Ren’s face? Would he shiver? Would he lean into the touch? Hux turned his attention to the datapad that held his most private dossier of names.

He saw what he expected to see. Out of his victims regular enough to have their names in this list, he saw only one that had reported himself alive after the events of the past week. Only one. That would make it more difficult. Two or three and he would not have to address them as individuals. This one was young, too, although not inexperienced before taking up business with the General. That could ease the blow. He doubted it.

Hux’s suite had two or three main rooms, depending on his preferences. He had a smaller room, holding his bed, the closet, the door to the refresher, and his more personal belongings. The larger room had a desk nearer the door, and his couch and a low table near the far wall. It was on the office side that Hux entertained expected guests, and on the latter side that Ren knelt in a corner polishing his boots.

Hux pulled a dividing screen between the two halves of the larger room. Ren looked over his shoulder in question. Hux shook his head, and Ren returned to his task. The young Lieutenant who Hux had to call to his quarters and the Supreme Leader must not, under any circumstances, see each other. Nothing good could come of that. Embarrassment. Jealousy. Shouting. Property damage. Potential blaster shots fired. Someone getting thrown into a wall. A possible fatality. All less than three hours from Captain Phasma’s funeral. Hux wouldn’t have it. He would shoot both of them himself.

The young man of twenty came to his audience with General Hux with a spring in his step, eager to serve and please. After the chaos of the past few days he thought he would find a welcome escape and a chance to give his Sir the same before the inevitable difficulty of speaking in memory of the Captain. As soon as he saw the look on Hux’s face, he realized was wrong.

“Lieutenant,” said Hux, something he never called him if anything fun was going to happen.

“General,” said the younger man, as monotone as he could manage when addressing _him_.

“Do not sit down,” Hux ordered. “I must keep this brief. As you know, we have an unpleasant morning ahead of us, and you’re not going to like what I’m about to say. Before you protest – ” Because the Lieutenant had opened his mouth to do exactly that. “ – I must assure you that you have done nothing wrong.”

“What did I do wrong?” the Lieutenant butted in regardless. “Sir, I don’t know what I did!”

Hux had not wanted to raise his voice. He wanted to keep this conversation quick and detached, and did not want Kylo Ren to overhear it. But his frustration got the better of him: “I _just_ said that you did nothing wrong!”

“Please, tell me!”

“It has nothing to do with you!” Hux snapped. “It’s a circumstance completely independent of you, but unfortunately, it necessitates the termination of our spoken contract. Now – ”

“ _No!_ ”

Hux tried to signal him to keep his voice down to no avail.

“But you’re the _best_!” the Lieutenant blurted. “Sir, please, you can’t dismiss me! I’m… You can’t tell me you have someone better than me!”

“I have no one, actually,” said Hux. “They’re all dead.”

“Wh… all of them?!”

“Dead. The others are all dead. You’re the only one left.”

It felt strangely gratifying to see someone else shaken by the magnitude of Hux’s personal losses. The others were dead. Captain Phasma was also dead. Supreme Leader Snoke was dead. Dopheld Mitaka was dead. Rae Sloane was dead, although why he thought of her in that moment Hux did not know. Rae Sloane had been dead for some years.

“Then I don’t understand why I’m being dismissed, if I’m the only one left! That doesn’t make any sense!”

“I can’t tell you why.”

“I’ve done everything you commanded, Sir! I live for you! I – ”

_Thunk_.

The two of them looked in the direction of Hux’s desk to see a pair of gleaming black boots and behind the boots, a shirtless Kylo Ren. He hadn’t done a bad job… up until that moment, when he did the worst thing he could have.

“I’ve completed the task you set for me, Sir,” he said, unflinching and unashamed.

Hux wanted to scream, but the scream froze inside of him.

“ _Oh_ ,” said the Lieutenant. “Oh, I see.”

“You don’t see,” said Hux. It was both an order and a statement about how little the younger man knew. “You saw nothing.”

“I saw everything I need to see,” said the Lieutenant. His tone and posture had changed. While before he stood at attention and broke from stiff and formal to desperate pleading in his words, now, he had one hand planted on his hip and a finger pointing back and forth between Hux and Ren. Hux’s eyes narrowed. If this boy were still his, he would be on the ground with the back of Hux’s hand across his pinched, pointy-nosed face for this outrageous display of aggression. But he was no longer his submissive. Only his soldier. Hux did not move. “And you can’t kick me out of your life now. You can’t. I’ll expose both of you to High Command. To the whole First Order. I know what you are, _Generahhhhgh, hhkk, ggghhkkk…!”_

Hux found himself unsurprised as the Lieutenant lifted off of the floor. The toes of his boots could scrape it if he kicked, which he did. He clutched at his throat. What did surprise Hux was the obvious difference in pressure that Ren applied to the Lieutenant’s throat and what he had done to Hux in Snoke’s throne room. The man could not speak. His eyes bulged and rolled. He stretched his hand out to Hux, as if Hux could pull him to safety.

“Do we need to kill him, General?” asked Ren.

Hux considered. “I don’t know,” he said to Ren. “Do we, Supreme Leader?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know him,” said Ren. “He is yours, not mine.”

Hux looked into the boy’s eyes and let himself smile a little. “He is no longer mine.”

“He’s your Lieutenant,” Ren clarified. “Is he of use to the First Order? Is he too much of a risk?”

If Hux did not make a decision soon, Ren might kill the boy anyway. “Drop him,” he said after a few seconds.

The boy collapsed on the floor only to find a blaster taken from Hux’s desk inches from his face. “You will not expose anything to anyone,” said Hux. “You will get up, walk out of here, and await my referral to a new partner. I will give you my highest recommendation. If you so happened to be foolish enough to try to ‘expose’ us to High Command or anyone else, it would be of no consequence. With the reassurance that both the Supreme Leader and I will produce heirs and replenish the First Order’s ranks, they would leave us to our devices. Do you know why that is, Lieutenant? Because for all of the First Order’s talk of stamping out degeneracy and putting humans first, _competency_ affords us privileges. They can’t do without either of us. Anyone could do without you. You were never anything but disposable to me. All of you were. All of your kind are. And if you don’t make yourself indispensable, irreplaceable, you will find yourself continually upgraded from and replaced.”

Beginning at the word _disposable_ , the boy’s face changed. It hurt him more deeply than any slap, any lash, any burn or cut that Hux considered him disposable.

“So when I refer you,” Hux concluded, holstering his blaster. “You’d better work to make yourself more valuable, lest you be yet again passed along. Not everyone is as generous and tolerant of mediocrity as I am.”

“I never had a chance,” said the boy, flatly, but with tears on his face.

“No,” said Hux, smiling. “You never did.”

“Okay,” said the boy. “I never had a chance. Okay.”

He crawled until he could pull himself up enough to stumble, and then stumbled pale-faced and shaking out of Hux’s quarters. Hux turned around to see Ren looking at him with some emotion he could not identify. He held his eyes wide, but blinked them frequently. His mouth was closed, but his neck stretched forward.

“ _That’s_ what you’re giving up,” he commented. “For me.”

Hux sighed and shook his head. “The fact that I said those things to make him leave and keep his mouth shut does not detract from the fact that every word of it was true. None of them meant anything. They were my soldiers. I took care of them. I would not have chosen them.”

“What would you choose?” asked Ren. “If this weren’t your life, if you could take any lover you wished, what would you choose?”

“Nobody can take any lover they wish,” Hux pointed out. “Taking lovers is a vile, asinine game of costs and benefits and prestige and grabbing the best deal the average mouth-breathing simpleton can find to sate their animal instincts and then making up some story about feelings they have to pretend to have to save face. I’m not interested. My way of life is superior to theirs.”

“You’re married to the First Order,” said Ren.

Hux shrugged and nodded. “One could say that.”

Ren watched him as he folded the privacy screen back into the wall. In the half of his quarters which contained his bed, a panel of the wall slid into itself to reveal a closet of identical uniforms, two more pairs of boots, and his greatcoat. Everything he needed for the cycle – including a pair of boots that was not the pair Ren polished – he laid in order of donning on his bed.

“You’re right,” said Ren.

Hux frowned and looked up. “Yes, but about what?”

“About what you just said,” said Ren. “About lovers. It’s true. And I’d always known it. Nobody but you had ever said it to me out loud. Thank you.”

“For what?” asked Hux.

“For saying it out loud.”

“Why?”

Ren had no explanation, but asked, “Would you abolish marriage?”

“What?!”

“Within the First Order. Within the Galaxy. Would you do away with marriage, if you were in my place?”

“If I were the Supreme Leader?” As he should be.

“Yes.”

“No,” said Hux as he crossed one sleeve of the uniform on his bed to mimic a salute. “People are accustomed to it. If we took it away from them, they’d complain that we took something away from them. They’d never hear us out, even if we offered them better alternatives. That’s not to say I would _encourage_ marriage, though.”

He knew what Ren was doing. Trying to have a conversation about love, marriage, and _feelings_ , all without saying they should engage in those things outright. Ren did not want any of those things for the two of them. He merely wanted Hux to want them, so that he could use that desire to gain control, the same way Hux used Ren’s desires for attention and praise. Let him try.

“I hope you don’t think you’re going to honor Phasma in your current condition,” he told Ren, before Ren could make any more sickening overtures. “Wash your hair. I’ll send your clothes to be cleaned before the ceremony.”

Ren shrugged. He looked around Hux’s quarters. “May I use your facilities?”

Hux pointed. Across the room from his bed, on the other end of the false window, was the door to said facilities. While Ren cleaned himself – or attempted to, thought Hux – Hux had a chance to look over his speech. He never took his notes with him. His speeches must always appear spontaneous, as though he were so gifted with words and so inspired by the First Order that he composed them right then and there.

Phasma deserved better than _notes_. She did deserve a speech from someone so gifted with words and so inspired that he composed her eulogy in one glorious moment of oration. But Hux was no such man, because no such man existed. The illusion mattered, but it was an illusion nonetheless.

…Kylo Ren could stay in that shower all morning, Hux thought while he pulled up the speech on his datapad, and not be clean. Ren was filth incarnate.

He had read the speech over twice when the com at his door lit up and buzzed. With a sense of dread that it would be the Lieutenant again, Hux looked through the viewport to find that it was not. It was in fact a droid with a rack of black clothing and two trunks on a cart beside it. Hux frowned. But his uniforms were in his closet. His laundry was not scheduled for –

_Ren did this_.

“What is it.”

The droid spoke in a stilted, high voice. “The Supreme Leader has requested that I deliver his belongings to your quarters, General Hux.”

The door slid open before the droid finished. Hux had pushed the button while asking what it was and returned to his desk. Over his third mug of tea, he watched the black robes swaying on their rack, suddenly feeling tired again. Why was he surprised that Ren had quarters chosen on board the _Finalizer_? Why did he feel as though he had been tricked into letting him sleep in his quarters? Ren explicitly said that he would leave if Hux demanded it, and yet…

He had said nothing to suggest he was having his clothes sent over when Hux said he would send his clothes to be cleaned. Hux had a hunch, although no proof, that Ren wanted him to believe that he had nowhere else to go. Now, the Supreme Leader’s accursed _matched luggage_ sat in Hux’s office.

The _sneak_!

The droid left him alone. Well. Hux was _not_ going to let Ren know that his little power play had paid off. He would pretend not to notice what Ren had done. He would think only of his speech and of Phasma. He certainly would not think about Kylo Ren, or how Hux could have been alone in his bed last night rather than sharing it with someone else’s body… his breath… his heartbeat…

How had he managed to sleep so late with that oaf literally breathing down his neck? How had he fallen asleep at all?

Hux stared at the words on his screen with new determination. He would think only of _his speech_ and of _Captain Phasma_ , damn it. Her strength. Her heroism. Her bravery. Her legacy.

Kylo Ren sauntered into Hux’s office wearing only a towel to find his rack of clothes. He selected a set of robes – probably the ones he imagined the blackest, thought Hux – and sauntered wordlessly back out. Hux never looked up from his speech.

Throughout his shower, Hux used the itinerary of motions taught to him by his father from the days of the Empire to distract himself from any thoughts of Ren. Ren lounged on his bed at that very moment. Ren’s body had still dripped with water while the wet towel clung to his hips, making Hux wish he had acquiesced to use a sonic instead of a real shower after Brendol passed and he inherited these quarters. Rinse. Shave.

Not even the sight of Ren meditating rather than lounging deterred him from dressing himself and slicking back his hair as quickly and efficiently as he could. Only when he finally stood looking in his full-length mirror to assess himself did he allow himself to bother thinking of him again, and that was only because Ren loomed behind him in the reflection.

With Hux in front, all sharp features and rigid posture, and Ren behind him they looked… intimidating. Neither of them smiled. Ren… did clean up nicely. He washed his hair, as Hux berated him for not doing in the interrogation room. It almost floated around him.

“You want more,” said Ren, barely moving his lips.

“More what? More tea?” Hux saw Ren edging closer to him in the mirror, but if he moved, Ren would know that could get a reaction from him.

“More from last night. When I kissed you.”

“Tch. Your little hocus-pocus only works on the weak-minded.”

“Mmm…” Ren’s mouth had gotten dangerously close to Hux’s ear. “That wasn’t a mind trick.”

“Reading my mind counts as a mind trick,” hissed the General.

“It doesn’t,” whispered Ren. “They’re different. I could teach you all about it. And I don’t _always_ need to read your mind to know what you want, General. I saw how you looked at me in the mirror.”

Hux decided that was enough. Ren had overstepped far enough that he could justifiably move. It would not do for him to be anything but the first person to the assembly. He took a step away from the mirror, only to feel Ren’s hand on his waist, not pulling him back but discouraging him from moving further away.

“And furthermore,” said Ren. “Reading your mind and _sensing your feelings_ are also different.”

“ _I don’t have_ – ”

“ – feelings. Right.”

Ren released Hux and Hux released a breath. He stuck his officer’s cap over his red hair solely for the purpose of taking off at the funeral. Ren knew about his grudging mixture of loathing and lust. Hux had to first admit to himself that it was real, then concede its existence to Ren and allow it to change nothing. He kept an arm’s distance between the two of them as they journeyed the halls to the assembly.

“Will you publicize Captain Phasma’s death?” Ren kept his eyes trained on the way ahead of them as he asked the question. Hux could hear the slight limp in his step in the otherwise silent hallway. He was recovering, but still imperfect. “You never publicized your father’s, from what I hear. But if the Resistance knows what happened to her, they’ll use it to rally others to their cause.”

Hux frowned. Publicizing Phasma’s passing would make the First Order appear weaker from the outside, to the Galaxy at large. Publicizing Brendol Hux’s passing would have made the First Order appear weaker to its members outside of the _Finalizer_. But if the Resistance spread the word after the First Order denied it, it would make them look even worse.

“My propagandists are already at work making holos about Phasma’s legacy to circulate within the First Order,” he said after thinking it over. “If we use an angle about the evils of the Resistance in taking a hero like Phasma from the Galaxy, it could serve us well. That’s the focus of my speech. We can intercut it into the reels. We should wait to see what the Resistance will do. If they never address Phasma, we can give the issue more careful consideration. They’re no threat to us as of now.”

“We have to chase them down,” said Ren. “As soon as possible.”

“You’re _limping_ ,” said Hux.

“Every hour we wait is an hour they can use to grow stronger,” said Ren.

“No,” said Hux. “No, you don’t strike first.” He stopped in the hallway. Ren took two more steps before turning back to look at him with his brow furrowed. “You know this, don’t you? We make them come to us, Supreme Leader.  We remain vigilant at all times, of course, we tell of their misdeeds and smear their names and faces across the Galaxy, but we let them strike first so that we can strike back, harder, when they have exposed themselves. You do know this, don’t you?” Even in hand to hand combat, the same rules applied as in warfare.

Ren bit the inside of his lower lip. “After the memorial,” he said.

“After the memorial,” Hux agreed. They did not have time to strategize.

But they _had_ agreed about something.

The two of them were the first ones to the assembly. Hux swept his hat off as he crossed the threshold without displacing a single strand of his hair. A holo of the deceased Captain three times Hux’s height flickered blue behind a podium. The holographic Phasma’s cape blew in a wind from another plane of space and time. She spun her spear and thrust one shining arm over her head. The sign of the First Order appeared behind her head, like the disk of a sun. Like a spotlight. Like a crown. Hux had seen such images of humanoids in relics of primitive ages on some planets. He knew it held religious significance to the people who created them, but not the details.

Phasma would be much the same. Shining eternal, immortalized in propaganda reels and training holos, forever guiding generations of Stormtroopers to victory… leading them into oblivion, perhaps, as a mythological goddess who ushered the worthy from battles to a life beyond the stars. The troops might elevate her to such a status. Hux would remember her as she was.

He watched his reflection approach in her helmet. The left eye had suffered a blow and shattered away. He pursed his lips. Not even he had seen her face, and she was closer to him than to anyone else living. Hux would hesitate to call it _close_. She died with them knowing almost nothing of each other personally. But they could always trust one another, could they not? They could trust one another to act in their own self-interest, and it never happened that their self-interests conflicted. He had trusted her to do the one thing he could never trust himself to do.

The gleaming surfaces of her armor, although scuffed, partially melted, or broken in places, made him think of the bacta tank. The one his father floated in nine years ago, after coming down with an “unknown ailment”, and then suddenly floated in no more. Armitage blinked when it happened. He hadn’t meant to. He meant to watch his father die as unflinchingly as his father watched him cower and cry as a child with pain throbbing through his tiny body, and with the same sneer. But he blinked and jumped.

Hux wanted to pick the pieces up and stare at each of them, but he knew he must not. They sat in a small pile, with her helmet on top, on a pedestal draped with a First Order flag along with a box that held her ashes. Behind the pedestal was a podium. Behind that podium, the hologram. The Supreme Leader and the General waited to the left and right of the podium, standing in honor of the deceased, until the inhabitants of the _Finalizer_ were gathered.

“A search team found Captain Phasma’s armor encasing her remains, hooked around a piece of the _Supremacy_. She had fallen from some height. Was it the fall that did her in? Was she wounded? Was it the fire? Did she suffocate? What killed the unkillable Captain Phasma?”

Hux waited a moment to let them formulate their theories, then answered his own question:

“ _The Resistance killed Captain Phasma_. The Resistance, as an anti-social movement worshipping chaos and division, as a directionless storm of insurgency, rebellion, and meaningless pathos about the fantasy of false freedom, _The Resistance killed Phasma_!”

Not through combat prowess, not through strategic competence, not by power, but by their evil ideas. Regardless of what the facts might be, nobody had _bested_ Phasma. Not in the First Order. Not on the _Finalizer_.

“The poisonous ideas that the First Order _must_ expunge from the Galaxy claimed many of our soldiers. Our soldiers gave their lives to ensure the future of all peace-loving, reasonable, and rational Galactic citizens! They took Phasma from not only us, but from an entire Galaxy that she sought to uplift!”

This was untrue. Although Hux and Phasma could always trust each other to act in their own self-interest, only Hux’s self-interest was tied to the First Order as an institution. He believed in it in ways Phasma did not. In death, he could use her name, her image, and her impact to further his goals – and while she might not have wanted it that way, she would have _expected_ nothing else from him, he thought.

“The Resistance may believe that in committing this crime, they have wounded us. But they are wrong. Now, every member of the First Order must aspire more than ever to Captain Phasma’s greatness! We will rise above! We will overcome! We will carry her into the future, and we will write her name on the walls we will erect over the wreckage left by the Resistance when they are stamped out, so that her fight for tomorrow is never forgotten!”

“Phas-ma, Phas-ma, Phas-ma…!”

As Hux’s shout of never forgotten rang around the room, someone started the chant softly, and it spread softly to his neighbors. Hux would not typically tolerate such spontaneous outbursts, but funerals were for the benefit of the mourning. The chant grew and rumbled. Hux never joined in, but he mouthed the name once, barely moving his lips, looking at the blue glow visible on the far white wall.

There was no memorial for Snoke.

As the General and the Supreme Leader swept out of the hall, their eyes met. Ren inclined his head slightly. Now, they had time to discuss the issue of what to do regarding the Resistance. Hux could extensively cite to him the reasons why they should not pursue them. As he was preparing a list in his head, his personal com alerted him of a message.

The message was from First Order High Command.

_General Hux, contact High Command ALONE as soon as you are able._

Hux glanced at Ren, whose personal com did not appear to receive any such transmission. Deep in the back of his mind, Hux already knew why High Command wanted to speak with him. The idea that the boy had exposed them (as a result of only one session!) did occur to him, but he quickly dismissed it.

“Supreme Leader,” he said. “I will be with you shortly. I must tend to an urgent matter in my quarters. Alone.” The one place he could ensure that he would not be disturbed.

Ren gave no indication that he sensed anything amiss. Hux tried to think about a toilet. Whether it worked or not, Ren nodded. “Have Snoke’s possessions sent to the temporary quarters I chose. Find me there.”

The nerve. Tasking a General like a secretary. The location of Ren’s quarters appeared on his com seconds later. Hux had half a mind to do nothing about it, but he found himself facing a conundrum:

He did not want to contact High Command. He knew what they would say, and he did not know what he would do about it. Hux had a seat at their table, but he never occupied it because he was on the _Finalizer_ doing _actual work_ and High Command was floating around outside the Outer Rim. It was outrageous, the amount of _actual work_ Armitage Hux took on compared to anyone else in the First Order. It was unfair, is what he would have said if such a childish word were in his vocabulary.

So to delay the inevitable, he had everything that Supreme Leader Snoke had on him when he died and everything salvaged from the wreck of the _Supremacy_ sent to Kylo Ren’s temporary quarters, where none of his clothes, few personal possessions, or grooming necessities were. It took less time than he would have liked. Why him? Why Hux?

Because he put himself in this position, that was why. He was the person willing to do the work that others were willing to shunt onto him.

Ren knew. Ren had to know. He heard his com go off, he must have. Who else would it have been? Who would Hux not have dared not to tell him about? Ren himself was also technically part of High Command, but Hux had not seen him at any of their meetings in the past four years. There was only one reason they would not invite the Supreme Leader himself to contact them when they summoned Hux.

“Armitage.”

They called him by his given name instead of his rank to demean him, their junior by two decades in the least case. Many of them had known his father, and he had a hunch they had strong opinions as to who was “the _real_ General Hux” in spite of all Armitage did for them. He could see the lot of them, projected in a circle on his table. They could see him on theirs. Like dolls. Great, tired-looking, cronyish dolls, in their case. Drunk, high, or just contented gluttons reaping the benefits of sitting atop the heap of the Galaxy. Sweaty. Bleary. Slurred. Wearing exquisite suits, decorating themselves with more credits than many saw in a lifetime, like the suits were attire meant to be slept in. Connected men, with useful friends who wanted protection, contracts, and other mutually beneficial arrangements. Parasites enabling other parasites. No Sloane here, not anymore. No Sloanes, no Borums or Randds, not even any Brendols. Hux would have settled for twelve Brendols if he could trade these for them.

“You _have_ to get rid of Kylo Ren.”

There it was. Hux only sighed and inclined his head to acknowledge that he heard.

“Kylo Ren is dangerous.” As if Hux needed an explanation! “These Force users have been a wrench in the machine since Palpatine’s era.”

Cups and knuckles rapped on the table beyond the Outer Rim in approval. Grunts all around.

“Their time is up,” the man sober enough to do the talking burbled on. “Their day is done. They _use_ us. They need us more than we need them, which is hardly at all.”

“What is their agenda?” asked another man, with a much higher voice that the transmission distorted so that it rang with overtones. “Nothing pertinent to that of the First Order, _really_!”

Hux leaned back into his couch and crossed his legs. “I admit that same thought nagged at me even as Supreme Leader Snoke sat on the throne.” It was true, and now that Snoke was dead he found it frightened him less to think it freely.

“Precisely!”

“If,” said the first speaker. “You dispose of Ren… and all of his kind, wherever they’ve gotten off to…”

“I don’t know,” Hux admitted. “It was a matter between them and the Supreme Leader. I mean, the old Supreme Leader.”

“It’s of no consequence.” The man waved a fleshy hand, somehow causing his whole body to ripple. “Perhaps they shall never return at all! However. _Armitage_. If you deal with… uhhh, with the _Rens_ , you will be the new Supreme Leader of the First Order. It’s not a _bribe_ , it’s simply… it’s the _right_ move to make. Wouldn’t you agree? You’re the one getting things done around here, eh?”

The round table erupted into laughter. But why did they laugh? Did they agree? Or were they trying to gloat to themselves about how easily Hux could be sent to safely do their dirty work?

“I understand what must be done,” said Hux. “I shall take immediate action. Expect to hear from me within two cycles at the most.”

“Excellent.”

Once again, Hux was alone in his quarters. He knew the thermos of tea Ren had brought still waited next to his bed. After consideration, Hux turned instead to the liquor cabinet his father had frequented, but which he had touched about once a year since the beast’s passing.

Beasts. Hux was surrounded by beasts. Brendol. Snoke. Ren. High Command. The entire damn _Galaxy_. Beasts. He pulled the stopper out of a bottle of brandy and took a swig. Disgusting as ever. He put it back and returned to his couch to steel himself.

How different _Armitage_ sounded when that useless slob said it compared to when Ren said it. It echoed through his brain. _Armitage_ , dispose of Kylo Ren. _Armitage_ , you want more. _Armitage_ , you can have the throne. _Armitage_ , let me whisper in your ear.

Hux had his blaster and his knife. He knew where Ren was. He could simply do it now. Take another swig of brandy, march down a few halls, soften him up with a choice degrading phrase or two, let the fool kiss him on the cheek again, and pull the trigger. Simple, he told himself, just put one foot in front of the other. _Armitage_ , you’ve done _far_ worse.

In the end, he elected not to take the second swig of brandy.

The door to Ren’s new quarters hissed open to reveal him without a shirt, holding the hilt of one of those lightsabers his kind loved waving around so much and what Hux identified as the stone from the ring the former Supreme Leader had worn for as long as Hux could remember. He stepped aside with more of a sweep to his arm than necessary. A grand gesture. Such a gallant.

“What did they want?”

Hux did not enter the room. He let his shoulders slump with the weight of how he detested Ren.

“Did they want you to dispose of me?”

Hux only sighed.

“Do it, then,” said Kylo Ren, holding his arms out on either side of his exposed torso.

Not to be shown up, Hux reached for his blaster and aimed. He set his mouth in a line, looking between Ren’s face, his gun, and where Ren’s heart was. He knew Ren could stop his bolt in the span of the short distance between them, prepared as he was, or even stop his finger from squeezing the trigger. But he did not have to. Hux stared at the gun for a final few seconds, sucked his teeth, and tossed the thing to the floor.

“Useless,” he muttered. He kicked it as he entered Ren’s quarters. It skittered, glanced off the leg of a table, and spun to a halt.

“No,” said Ren. The door slid shut. “Neither you nor the blaster.”

Hux considered that he could still slip his blade between the Supreme Leader’s ribs. _Supreme Leader Hux_ , he thought to himself. _Emperor Armitage Hux the First_. Ren took him by the shoulders. Hux cursed himself for tensing at his touch, and cursed himself again when he saw Kylo take note of it. His brow furrowed slightly and he narrowed his eyes. But then it passed.

“If you did kill me,” said Ren. “If you slit my throat as I speak, right now, what would you gain?”

“I would be the new Supreme Leader,” said Hux, and it sounded like a dreaded chore because he knew that he would not achieve it.

Ren nodded. “And then they could get rid of you, if you displeased them.”

Hux looked down at the sleeve that held his blade… it was not too late…

“Why should you be at their mercy? If you were the Supreme Leader, shouldn’t they be at your mercy? Why should you listen to them? General. Why should either of us listen to them?”

Ren tilted Hux’s head back with two fingers under his chin. Surely, the kiss would be here. Hux’s stomach jumped through his chest and into his throat. What did he want? What did _he_ want?! What did _Ren_ want?

“General Hux?”

“What exactly are you proposing, Supreme Leader?” he asked in a rushed flurry of syllables.

“We take my ship,” said Ren. “We fly to the Outer Rim, where they’re hiding. That’s where they are, right? Do you know where they are?”

“They’re not in the Outer Rim," Hux admitted. “They’re past it.”

“But you can find them?”

“Yes…”

“Good. We go, we find them, and we make ourselves clear. We explain to them that there has been a change of leadership, and with it there’s going to be some real restructuring of how the First Order conducts itself.”

“How do you suggest we negotiate these terms?”

“Aggressively,” said Kylo Ren.

Hux weighed Ren’s words. He could cite innumerable reasons why Kylo Ren should have to answer to as many people as possible, including himself – but not to High Command for any reason other than one more layer of defense the material world would have against him. He could think of reasons why the Supreme Leader, as an office, should answer to High Command. Those were learnt from his father, among other former authority figures, not drawn from his mind and his experiences. He _felt_ that Kylo Ren should answer to _someone_ , because he believed it. He _knew,_ logically and because he had been told so many times, that the Supreme Leader should have to answer to High Command.

But those authority figures were either all gone or were now the leeching, bloated High Command of the present. The High Command as it manifested under Snoke, who as an adept in the Force could never be made to listen to anyone. The threat of forcible removal from the throne _should_ enforce High Command’s mandates. It never had. It could not now. The First Order’s intended balanced had power had never been implemented, and never would.

The only authority remaining was himself, Ren, and High Command.

Why, indeed, should Hux answer to _this_ High Command?

He knew what Ren was suggesting.

“We can’t take your ship,” Hux said after consideration. “We’ll take an unmarked shuttle.”

Ren considered this in turn, and then nodded. “I’ll still fly it.”

“You’re not concerned that I’ll turn on you?”

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“Not at all.”

“You’re not worried in the slightest that I might kill you on the way there?” asked Hux.

“No. I’m not.”

“You never cease to amaze me.”

Ren pulled his hand away from Hux’s chin. No kiss. Hux exhaled, trying to think of how it came to this. Ren had already turned to the door and gestured for the General to follow him, with his shirt and his cowl wadded in his hand. Would Hux scramble for his blaster and try to shoot? Or would he remain behind and let Ren commit treason alone, then come back to a General who had not assisted him in his claiming of absolute power? Those were the only reasonable options. Those were the only ways Hux could continue to uphold what the First Order stood for. Hux stooped and picked up his blaster from the floor.

He followed Ren.

Hux stared in alternation at his gloves, then at the blur of hyperspace. How _had_ it come to this? Any of this? If someone had told him two weeks ago that any of this would come to pass, he would have laughed in their face. His eyes strayed to Ren’s hands, gripping the controls of the ship as they came out of hyperspace and he flew them to the huge starship waiting at the end of their journey. When they came out, the First Order would have changed irrevocably. Hux’s heart pounded in his chest. He still had one of those. It threatened to tear itself out of his body. He tried closing his eyes and leaning back in his seat.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Ren. “We’re doing what we have to do. They’re nothing but dead weight. Toxicity, poisoning us.”

Something touched Hux’s knee.

“Get your hand off of my knee,” Hux said, not opening his eyes.

The offending hand was removed from his knee.

“I’m the Dominant,” said Hux, reminding himself more than Ren.

“Sometimes,” said Ren.

“I’m the _Dominant_ ,” Hux insisted.

“We didn’t establish that last night,” said Ren. “We didn’t establish anything. We were supposed to do that, right? We’re supposed to talk about what both of us want, and what’s okay and what isn’t. You just didn’t mention any of that. It was your one chance at getting some kind of control over me. You couldn’t afford to stop and let me talk about it. Right?”

Hux pressed his lips together and blew his breath through his nose.

“Right,” said Kylo. “So, we should probably do that soon. When’s a good time for you? I have to do to something right now. It’s important. But I’m free afterwards. Actually, I have a minute before that, if you’d like to get started.”

“Why not,” spat Hux.

“I enjoyed last night,” said Ren. “But I know neither of us can be satisfied with it. I saw what you want. You can’t hide it from me.”

“I’m not looking for satisfaction.”

“Right. You’re looking to save the First Order, the thing you’ve wed yourself to. You don't have time for your own satisfaction. And yet, here we are. Hux. Hux? _General_ _Hux?_ ”

Hux snapped his head up from his seat to glare at Ren. Ren had paused with his finger over the button that would open the communication channel and his eyebrows raised. The _Eclipse_ loomed in front of them. The window was the same size, but the Super Star Destroyer looked bigger than hyperspace had. Bigger than ordinary space, somehow. Hux rolled his eyes and nodded impatiently. Ren pushed the button.

“Identify yourself.”

“This is General Hux. I have urgent business with High Command. Open the gate immediately.”

“Right away, General.”

Ren released the button and carried on their conversation as though it were of an appropriately casual nature to carry on while landing a shuttle inside of a starship in the pursuit of an authoritarian power fantasy. “You’re looking to save the First Order,” he said again, softly. “And yet, here we are. _We’re_ saving the First Order. That’s what we’re doing. It’s up to us. These relics aren’t your First Order.”

Hux grunted in response. He stood, gripping his hands into fists behind his back, before their craft landed. Did the crew of this ship know of his orders from High Command? Did they even know what Ren’s face looked like? The door slid open. Nobody seemed to find their joint presence amiss. Ren stood and took his arm before he could disembark.

“I won’t be satisfied with repeats of last night,” he murmured. “I won’t be satisfied with repeats of Snoke’s rule. And I know you won’t either. You know what happens next. I know it scares you. It shouldn’t. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” Hux hissed. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of them. I’m not afraid of… of the future.” He could think of no better way to say it. “Now let me go. I have to lead the way. They’ll know. Stop ruminating on whatever fantastic notions you hold and watch for a potential ambush. You’re not meant to be alive.”

He knew he heard Ren say “I can feel that you’re afraid.” but he chose to ignore it and stride out of the ship into the _Eclipse_. None of the crew members should matter to him if he had urgent business with High Command, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He expected them to open fire at any time, but no attack came.

Hux knew the way to their meeting room. Their lair. The cave where they lazed around like Hutts in their decadence. Hux traversed the twisting halls with complete confidence, and with Ren trailing behind him. They did not speak to one another.

“Armitage!” one of them gurgled when he appeared in their threshhold. “Have you done as we asked?”

He surveyed them wordlessly. All of them human. All of them disgraces to Hux’s own species, barely human at all by his personal standards. All of them disgusting. All of them slouched. All of them men, he noticed, not that it held any significance. He had not discussed this moment with Ren, who positioned himself outside the door.

“I have done what must be done for the future of the First Order,” said General Hux. “And I will continue to do so as long as the First Order is within my power to uphold.”

The man smiled. “Take a seat, young Armitage.”

Hux almost expected something to happen. Oughtn’t this to be the part where Ren appeared? Or where he himself opened fire? Oughtn’t he to open fire now? Was Ren waiting for him to open fire? Was Ren… was Ren trying to hand him a moment of glory in which he opened fire? Could such a thing be possible?

“What did you just call me?” he said instead of opening fire.

Chuckles bubbled up around the table until Hux reached for his blaster. The other eleven men backed away from the one who addressed him by his first name, although that man himself did not move.

“Now, now,” said the man. “I remember your father’s day. Surely, you can’t expect me to look at a child I watched clipping about playing at being an officer and see the Supreme Leader.”

“I always thought more along the lines of Emperor as a title.” Hux leveled his blaster at the man. The man laughed. Hux did not laugh. “I think I’ve just about had it with people who think they can use me,” he said. “People who think they know how to control me. I will not answer to any of you. I will not be the Supreme Leader if that is what the title carries with it. No-one will answer to you.”

The man stopped laughing. His face turned from an amused smile to a scowl of impatience and exasperation with the child pointing a blaster at him. These people saw him as a child, just as they saw Ren as a child, and just as Hux saw Ren as a child. It was suddenly very clear to him. Ren waited to let Hux confront them. Ren did not issue him orders about what to do in this meeting, because he only cared for the outcome and not for how Hux chose to instigate their coup. Ren had brought him his tea.

Hux’s finger tightened on the trigger. He knew, as he had not known in the ship, what pulling it would mean. He knew what Ren had meant – at least in regards to what the First Order was and what its future held. He could see the end of his realization about to be illuminated in burning plasma.

A bolt of energy flashed in the air between them. A hole appeared in the chest of the slumping member of High Command. Hux looked at the faces of the other men, registering shock and confusion. Were they stunned by the breach of decorum? Or by Hux, by sulky, snobby little bastard Armitage Hux who nobody liked, going against their will?

He did not have time to find out. He got to watch their faces change from shock and confusion to sheer animalistic horror, blind panic, mouths contorting into wild shapes that issued screams and curses, lit all in red. Ren’s lightsaber hummed to life behind Hux's back. Hux felt a grin pull at his own mouth. It was the first one of its kind he had worn in years, an expression of wide gleeful abandon. He cared not for the consequences. Hux threw his head back and watched them stumble, watched them shove each other as soft human shields, from half-closed eyes.

“General. Stay back.”

Ren passed him on his right side. Hux kept his blaster in his hand, but stayed back as Ren told him. Not as Ren as the Supreme Leader told him, he realized, but as Ren as a man told him. The lightsaber fell, thrust, stabbed, blocked a lone blaster shot with ease – not Hux’s, but a soon-dead member of the former High Command. He could shoot Ren. Ren could turn his blade on him. Something that burned just as bright and hot as the sword in Ren’s hand shot through Hux, from his gut, through his chest, into the seat of his consciousness.

When the last one of them was dead, Hux lifted his head to look at Ren. Ren looked up at him, pushing a wet lock of black hair out of his face. The lightsaber stilled, dimming the room with grey shadows. The anticipation Hux felt coursing through him subsided into a mist that enveloped his being. Without thinking about the choice, he returned his blaster to his belt.

They were still looking at each other. With their weapons stashed away, Hux saw Ren, truly saw him, for the first time. Ren stepped over a body to close the distance between them. Hux remained fixed on the spot. Ren was coming to him. He must accept it. He knew.

Those arms were around his waist again. His gloved hand grasped at Ren’s cowl, with his other arm thrown around Ren’s broad shoulder. Hux had never looked into Ren’s eyes except with the assumption that there was everything to fear, and now he saw that there was nothing to fear. He felt so small, so defenseless, when Ren held him and when he looked into his eyes, and yet at the same time he felt inestimably powerful, because _they_ were the First Order now.

Ren kissed him as though the kiss were something overdue to him by the universe, as though he had the right and the authority to do that and anything else he wished with his General. And it was true. Hux knew it was true, because he wanted it to be true. Ren kissed him as though he might go on kissing him forever, and Hux wanted that to be true, too.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is care?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello naughty children it's emotions time

The only sounds were their breaths, clashing in tempo and timbre, and Hux’s pulse. His hand had gotten wound into Ren’s hair. Their foreheads pressed warm and damp against one another. Hux initiated the second kiss. He felt his body tilting back when his lips touched Ren’s again. One of Ren’s arms folded behind him, holding him easily aloft. Nothing to fear, and yet he must appear as though he wanted to break free. The Supreme Leader relished his victory. Hux’s struggle was a symbolic gesture, as was the tightened grip around his waist. He continued to grin.

“Tell me how much you hate me,” muttered Ren.

“The moment I saw you,” panted Hux. “I detested you. I knew you would be a stumbling block in my path and a thorn in the First Order’s side.”

“Hm,” said Ren. “I thought you were beautiful.”

Without warning, Hux found himself pulled back up, turned, and pressed on his back to High Command’s round table so fast his head kept spinning after the world around him came to a halt. Ren pinned the General’s forearms at his sides. His hands and the table’s surface could almost encircle them. In his position, Hux could not hope to kick him off. An attempt would end with his legs over Ren’s shoulders. He could dig his heels into Ren’s back at most.

“I thought that the only way you could be more beautiful was if you wore your hair down,” Ren went on. “But if you did that, I thought, you’d be too pretty to be a General. Too distracting. I was right. I saw you before you put it back. You are too pretty. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me not to do this to you in your quarters? Of course, I saw what you wanted to do to me. But this isn’t the same, is it? This means more, doesn’t it?”

Hux continued his gesture of fighting back, straining his arms against Ren’s. Nothing budged, just as it had not in the interrogation room. He could not fight Ren off. He smiled. “Brute.”

“I’m disgusting,” Ren agreed. “You weren’t ready yet. I did wait. But I still thought it. I’m sorry that I thought of it.”

“I’ve told you, Ren, I don’t care – ”

“Stop calling me Ren.”

Hux felt another, invisible hand holding down his neck, but he could still speak. “I don’t care if you’re sorry for anything you’ve done to me, _Supreme Leader_.”

“My name is Kylo. Yours is Armitage. Those are the names we’re going to use when we’re alone and I’m in charge. I demand this, both as the Supreme Leader and as the man in your life. Have I made myself clear?”

The same something that shot through him when he realized they could kill each other shot though him. It was the same thing that possessed him when he wanted to pull Kylo’s face to his crotch, or his head to his thigh, or to press himself against him from behind.

“The man in my life?” he chuckled. “What gives you the impression that you’ll ever be in charge?”

“Get up and walk away if you don’t like it. I assume you’ve reserved the right to do so.”

“How am I meant to do that? You’re pinning me to the table.”

The invisible hand on his neck vanished. The two corporeal ones holding down his arms slowly withdrew. Nothing stopped him from leaving.

“Go on,” said Kylo. “Take the shuttle back to the _Finalizer_. I’ll find another one.”

Armitage did not move. Kylo tried to, only for both of them to find Armitage’s legs crossed around Kylo’s middle. He had never been this close to anyone. It _hurt_. He wanted the hands holding him down back, and the excitement of the kiss. He had no idea if either of them was any good at kissing. Until a moment ago, he never thought kissing was a thing he had use for, but when presented with such a case for it he had to reconsider. The need for it ached inside of him, just like his shame in wanting it ached against Kylo’s belt. But Kylo would not give him that without getting something in exchange.

“Kylo – ” he started, and he could tell that his voice did something to the man standing over him. The hands were back on his forearms. Kylo’s lips were against his exposed neck, which felt softer than he had ever been aware of it feeling.

“Mm-hm… you can hit me, you can treat me like a pet… but your pet can stand up and ruin you. Never forget that. Your pet will rise and claim you as his mate. Not because I can make you do whatever I want, but because you _want_ me to make you do whatever I want. Look me in the eye.” Kylo pulled back. Armitage cycled the blessed air through his lungs while he had the unfettered chance. “Say that you understand.”

“I understand,” Armitage slurred out. “I w-want…”

He stopped, shaking his head furiously, and swallowed. It had become too much. Kylo nodded briefly and pulled him to sit on the edge of the table. It felt like Kylo had been holding him and soothing him all his life, like the hand cradling the back of his neck had always been there.

“May I look?”

“Mmhm…”

Armitage let what he wanted out of his mind for Kylo to see. Filth. Kylo’s filth had seeped into his otherwise spotless psyche and infected him with a desire for subversion, closeness, and things he could not control. He wanted Ren to teach him what it meant not to be alone. He wanted to keep fighting to control Kylo Ren, keep trying to tame him, even though he could never fully succeed and would spend so much time in anticipation of his Supreme Leader casting off his bonds and turning them back on him.

But then he saw something that was not his own. Kylo was showing him a small glimpse into his own mind. Armitage saw a throne, as Snoke’s had been, but large enough for the two figures on it to sit comfortably. One wore white, the other wore black. It was them. Kylo had his hand firmly on Armitage’s knee, and Armitage had his arm linked with Kylo’s.

“At your side?” he said out loud.

“Please,” said Kylo, softly, as though Armitage could possibly refuse such an offer.

Armitage frowned. Why did Kylo think he might say no? Kylo Ren, ruling the Galaxy alone? They had established that would never do. Someone had to rule the Galaxy with him. He might as well make it explicit and share the throne with the General – or the Grand Marshal, as the white uniform in the vision indicated. He had already been promised the title in the interrogation room, and Armitage was pleased to see that Kylo had not forgotten it.

Was it the romantic overtones of the image that gave Kylo pause? That wasn’t the nature of their… _relationship_. Although he had no name for what they were and although physical intimacy would soon take them, he was still not Kylo’s lover. Armitage was fairly certain that he _couldn’t_ feel those things, assuming anybody could to begin with and it wasn’t all a mass delusion.

“Co-commanders? Supreme Leaders?” he asked.

“Supreme Leader and Grand Marshal. But the throne seats us both.”

“What do we tell people? What do we tell them we are? As a unit?” Surely, not lovers, yet there they were on the throne together.

“We tell them the truth,” said Kylo, measuring his words.

“What is ‘the truth’?”

Kylo bit his lip and did not answer. He _did_ intend for them to be lovers, and he refused to let go of the notion. He had meant for it to sneak up on Armitage unnoticed until it became true. Hux felt the lust for each other’s bodies and power itself that possessed them slipping away. He regretted the question. He should have dismissed that as none of their business. He should have let Kylo ravish him without making a fuss…

“All I ever felt from you was hate,” Kylo began. “I wanted you. You were so beautiful, and yet you loathed me. I was… it made me angry. Confused. I resented you for it. I didn’t understand why or how. But I do now!” He had noticed Hux sighing and shifting uncomfortably on the table. “You were made to think that we had to fight for Snoke’s approval. I know what he was doing to us, but it doesn’t have to be like that now… you don’t have to agree with me.” Kylo moved on, sensing that Hux’s discomfort did not wane. “Just don’t leave me…”

Kylo let his words trail off and tried to kiss him, but Hux held his fingers over Kylo’s mouth. He was still sitting on the edge of the table with his legs crossed around him, though, and they were gazing into each other’s eyes. Kylo could have gotten his kiss if he tried harder. But he did not.

“We can carry on together, but I do _not_ have feelings for you,” Hux said explicitly.

“I can accept that,” said Kylo.

“And furthermore,” said Hux. “You don’t have feelings for me.”

Kylo clenched his jaw and looked away. “As I said, you don’t have to agree with me.”

“You chased a _teenage girl_ –”

“No!” Kylo blurted. “I wanted you _first_! She doesn’t mean anything! She’s nothing!”

“She’s not _nothing_!” Hux scoffed. “How dare you! You think I believe that? Get off of me.”

Kylo did not get off of him. In fact, he held the General to his chest. “She’s lower than nothing,” he insisted. “We’re going to destroy her, you said you’d help me… why do you think I’m lying?! I’m not lying!”

Hux’s earnest, non-symbolic struggle against the grip of the _liar_ holding him had the same result as the first one. Ren told him repeatedly not to be afraid, and now Hux refused to let himself feel fear. Ren could sense it if Hux allowed him. This was exactly what he wanted to avoid when they were in his quarters – Ren grabbing him forcibly in a fit of emotion. Hux must not tell him to let go, or Ren would know it affected him. He scowled and looked into Ren’s eyes, where he saw tears.

“You look so different now,” Ren mused. “You were ready to accept me a few minutes ago, and now your eyes are cold again…”

“ _Shut up_!” Hux barked, punctuated with a sudden jerk of his body to try to escape. Futile. “Look, I don’t care if you fancy some girl! There’s nothing between the two of us! Have her, kill her, make her your slave, use her to give you heirs, I don’t care at all! We can still sleep together and rule together and you can keep some girl. But don’t insult my intelligence!”

Ren did not answer him. Both of them knew that it did matter. Hux said it did not, but his heaving chest and the rage screaming through his mind said that it did. He cared not for Ren, only for the power the two of them would wield over the Galaxy and one another. But he knew that Ren would never allow him to have anyone else. Didn’t he have the right to be offended that the Supreme Leader lusted after the girl as well as him? Was that not fair? Were they not meant to be equals, between themselves?

“She treated me like…”

Ugh, Ren wanted his sympathy. His voice had that thick, wobbling quality. But Hux did not reach his position in the Order through sympathy. He wanted to roll his eyes, but settled for a restrained sigh and a few rapid blinks.

“…like everybody else has, I guess,” Ren admitted. “My parents. My uncle. Snoke. Nobody’s ever cared about…” He set his jaw again and swallowed. Hux wondered if he knew that this was classified as whining. “…about me. About me, as a person. I’ve been a hero’s successor. A tyrant’s tool. My parents loved the idea of their son. I loved the idea of them, too. That’s why my father had to die. If I went back with him… I wanted to go back, but I would have been going back to the lie. Things would have been different, for a little while. They would have been happy that their son had come home. But it would never have lasted… the girl. I’m sorry. You want to know about the girl. She’s nothing to be jealous of.”

“I’m not jealous!” Hux insisted.

“I believed that she would say yes to me. I offered her _everything_ ,” Ren all but spat. “She made me think that she would say yes! Not because she wanted to be a Queen, as I could have made her. Not because she wanted power. But because _I_ was the one offering it to her! I thought she would say yes to _me_! She made me believe that she was the one who would unite with me, and through our union guide the Galaxy!”

The same offer that he made Hux, effectively, although they would describe it in different terms.

“As soon as I asked I regretted it,” said Kylo. “Because I could see that she was going to say no. I would have given her myself and everything I had. She deceived me. Her mind never changed. She didn’t see _me_ , she saw a _thing_ , she saw a monster, she saw a weapon… she still hated me… she’s thrown her chance away, and I will not show her mercy. I promise you that.”

“What makes me different from her?” asked Hux, almost afraid that Kylo would realize there was no difference and decide that he was less than nothing, too. He had hated him. He had seen him as his new station. He tried to deceive him and use him.

“You didn’t lie about it.”

The sentence stuck into Hux’s gut like a knife.

“That’s why I’ll lift you up, but destroy her,” said Kylo. “That’s why I’ll keep you at my side. You’ve never claimed to care about me. You’ve never tried to make me think that I should hope for anything more from you.”

“I tried to kill you,” whispered Hux. “I tried to trick you. I did lie to you, I didn’t tell you things when I was supposed to, I was going to let you go on thinking that you had to do whatever I said or lose what I could give you, that’s exactly what she would have done to you…” And for that matter, that was exactly what Kylo posed to the girl. Why was he trying to convince Kylo that he was wrong?

“You’re wrong,” said Kylo. Hux felt his head shake back and forth against the crook of his neck. “She would have pulled me back to the light, back to a broken family and her friends who would never accept me no matter what I did for them, and then left me alone once she had no use for me. And even if I couldn’t see what’s in your heart…” Kylo pressed his cheek against Hux’s. “…I would have taken back control from you. You couldn’t have kept that up forever. Even if you wanted to. It doesn’t work like that, does it?”

He sounded almost _playful_. The General huffed. What he said was true, of course. It wasn’t meant to work without communication, trust, honesty… it could not be sustained like that.

“Are you satisfied?” asked Kylo.

Hux thought over his explanation and tried to think of any further accusations to hurl at him, but he found none. “I suppose I am.”

Kylo exhaled heavily. Even without abilities of the Force, Hux could almost feel anxiety falling away from the other man. Whether he was right or wrong, Hux could say with some confidence that Kylo believed everything he had said, and that the part of him that needed other people also needed Hux to believe him.

“I’m not using you,” said Kylo.

He brought him his tea. He showed a willingness to cooperate and listen. He went through with the previous night, despite knowing that Hux tried to deceive him. The girl he had chased was nothing to him now, and he almost cried when Hux refused to be convinced of it. Kylo was trying. Hux reminded himself all of this, just as he had right before he took the first shot against High Command – which Kylo had also thought to let him have.

“I gathered that,” said Hux. “Just before I shot.”

“I’m not just afraid of going to bed alone.”

“I misjudged you in more than one regard. But,” Hux added. “I will not love you.”

 “I will not give up,” said Kylo.

“I _can’t_ love you,” Hux elaborated, knowing better than to press the issue of Kylo’s feelings. “I can’t love anyone.”

“I was taught the idea of love,” said Kylo, nodding. “But you were never taught anything.”

It was not because he had never been taught, but because he had eyes and a brain. He looked around him at all the vastness of the Galaxy and he saw the lies in it for what they were. But he did not say this to Kylo. He did not, and would likely never, have the time to argue this point with him, and it was in his interest for Kylo to keep believing the lie he had been taught. “I repeat, it’s nothing you did.”

“But you’ll do everything that goes with it.”

“I don’t see how I’m going to avoid it,” Hux sighed.

“You want to.”

“ _Shut. Up_.” His ears burned. “Yes. I’ll do everything that goes with it, and so will you. I accept your terms, Supreme Leader.”

“I accept yours, Grand Marshal.”

Kylo offered his hand. They had been alone and gripped by desire in a room full of corpses and broken furniture for longer than they had been on the _Eclipse_ otherwise. The hand presented Hux with yet another choice in the string of choices. Before Kylo Ren, Hux had made correct choices every time life presented him with a choice to make. He acted decisively and with total reassurance that he was correct. Not right. Correct. But now, he stared at Kylo Ren’s hand. Should he have killed him at one of the several chances he let slip by? Should he have kissed him? Should he keep letting him seep and seep into him, until the stains on Hux’s mind became indelible? Because taking his hand, Hux knew, would be another bit of ground gained for Kylo. He chose to take it.

He also chose not to repress the fluttering sensation in his stomach.

They stopped short outside of the scene of their crime. A wall of Stormtroopers three deep in some spots blocked their path immediately outside the door… but not a single weapon was drawn. None of them showed any interest in avenging High Command. Not a single troop stood at attention. They huddled together, some stooped, some straining to glimpse over the heads of their peers.

“Were you _eavesdropping_?!” Hux said, shrilly. He pulled his hand out of Kylo’s like it burned him, leaving his new… _partner_ holding the air. “Were you _spying on us_?!”

“General,” said Kylo, trying to calm him. “I-I mean Grand Marshal, I’m sorry…”

Hux clutched at the closures of his greatcoat. They had all been listening in! When had it begun? What had they heard? One of the Stormtroopers glanced into the meeting room and swore, but sounded only shocked, not unhappy with what he saw. The crowd of them shuffled about, some to stand at attention and some to try to clear their way, and others torn between the two. Between them they managed to divide roughly into two equal groups standing approximately in lines with a space between them wide enough for the two men to pass, which they did without further acknowledging the Stormtroopers, with Hux furious and red-faced and Kylo still recovering from his brush with the tears.

“Sir?” asked a small voice when they had passed. The Supreme Leader and the Grand Marshal both whirled around to look back at the Stormtroopers, who backed away from the one of their number that spoke. “Wh-what’s going on?”

Hux and Kylo looked at one another. Hux did not know what was going on well enough to answer her question. Although he had not known what was going on enough times in the past few days enough to become familiar with the sensation, he was not what he could call “used to it”. Kylo opened his mouth. Hux felt a stab of panic.

“High Command was not necessary,” Kylo explained to the Stormtroopers. “They were a weight we had to shed. Now we can go forward. The _Eclipse_ will rejoin the main fleet, where – ”

“No,” said Hux. “The _Eclipse_ must not rejoin the main fleet.”

Kylo Ren slowly turned to look at his Grand Marshal, who had spoken out of turn and contradicted him in front of his troops. The troops collectively drew back, no doubt expecting to see Hux choked, thrown into a wall, or under threat from his lightsaber. But Hux drew himself up straight, stuck out his chin, and addressed her: “What is your designation, soldier?”

The Stormtrooper too drew herself up straight and saluted. “GH-2859, Sir.”

“Who is in command of this vessel?”

GH-2859 looked into High Command’s meeting room. “The Captain has… h-has succumbed to his injuries, Sir.”

“How unfortunate,” said Hux. “Is the chain of command clear?”

“Actually,” said GH-2859. “It is not, Sir. The _Eclipse_ has received no orders and undergone no changes in operations since I was stationed here.”

They had just been floating near the border of the Outer Rim all this time, holding sentry over a clubhouse of scumbags.

“Perfect,” said Hux. “As Grand Marshal of the First Order, I promote you to the rank of Captain. Would you like a proper name?”

“I – ”

“Very well. From this day forth, you shall be known as Captain Audacious, of the Super Star Destroyer  _Eclipse_. Your one and only order, until further notice, is to keep this ship running exactly as it has been run. You are to change absolutely nothing. Run this ship as it has run throughout your station here, Audacious. Do not move. Tell no one about the demise of High Command, except for your crew, and make it very clear that anyone who disseminates this information commits treason to the First Order. Do you understand?”

The newly christened Captain Audacious still stood at attention, but her body wanted to shrink in on itself and it showed. She clearly did not understand _why_ this was her order, or what was going on. “I understand my orders, Grand Marshal.”

“Good. The next time you hear from me, I’ll be sending someone to mint you some new armor as befits your rank. It’s something of a First Order tradition, wouldn’t you say?”

“Absolutely, Sir,” said Captain Audacious, struggling to keep her voice even. But her superior did not listen to her response. He turned on his heel and clicked away down the hall with Kylo Ren swooping after him.

The Stormtroopers – now _her_ Stormtroopers – followed them at a safe distance. Was there any such thing as a safe distance to follow them from? Regardless, they followed, with Audacious and another Stormtrooper she often sparred with towards the back of the crowd. Muttering to each other, Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux got back into their shuttle. It took a minute and a half for the troopers to realize their leaders were not taking off yet.

“Stormtrooper Captains running Star Destroyers isn’t really a First Order tradition,” muttered the Stormtrooper who hung back with Audacious. His designation was OD-1888.

“It’s also not something I really want to talk about right now,” said the Stormtrooper Captain. She knew why she had been made Captain: because she had no right to be, and no idea what to do as one. She could be trusted to keep the _Eclipse_ safely where Hux wanted it to be.

“What the _Hell_ is going on?”

“I am not the person to ask,” said Audacious. “But I trust General Hux.”

“Grand Marshal Hux,” OD-1888 reminded her.

“Grand Marshal Hux,” said Audacious. “We’ll watch his address later, like we always do. I’m sure it’ll offer some explanation. He probably doesn’t have time right now. He’s a busy man.”

“But you don’t trust _him_ , do you?”

“Who? Kylo Ren?”

“Yeah.”

“I barely know anything about him. Nobody does,” said Audacious.

“Hux obviously knows something about him,” OD-1888 said dryly.

Audacious considered. “You’re right. He obviously knows something about Kylo Ren that we don’t. I don’t think anybody could fall for Hux and not be someone we should at least _try_ to trust until he proves us wrong.”

OD-1888 tore his eyes away from the shuttle, which still did not whirr to life. “How does that work?”

Inside her helmet, Audacious frowned and tried to put her reasoning into words. “Well,” she began. “Gen – _Grand Marshal_ Hux is a very…” She hesitated, because she could not think of a way to make her assessment of the Grand Marshal sound less than inappropriate. “…he’s a very passionate man. He’s smart. He’s committed to the First Order, and so are all of his talents. So I don’t think that someone who didn’t share at least some of his passion and his ideals could possibly notice how, uh…” She hesitated again.

“He’s pretty,” OD-1888 said bluntly, voicing her thought.

“Thank you,” said Audacious. “But I don’t think someone would notice unless they also possessed some of what makes him who he is.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Do you think the Resistance thinks he’s pretty?”

OD-1888 looked back at the shuttle. “Okay, fair.”

The shuttle finally revved up and flew out the hangar into the darkness.

“So,” said Audacious. “I think it must be alright. Hux would never betray the First Order. Hux would never fall for someone who would.”

OD-1888 gave a low, skeptical hum. “Well, Ren definitely feels that way. We all heard them. Obviously, he’s working with Ren now, so what you said is still true, but those feelings aren’t reciprocated.”

“Oh!” said Audacious, sounding surprised, as though what he said had not occurred to her, even though she had heard Hux say it. She looked at OD-1888. “Do you think he was telling the truth? _Oh_ …”

 

Shortly prior, Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux tried to outpace each other through the halls of the _Eclipse_.

“Why did you do that?!” Kylo whispered furiously. “You undermined me in front of our troops! I’m the Supreme Leader!”

Hux passed him up by a hair. “I thought we were co-commanders.”

“We are!” said Ren. Both of them looked ridiculous (in front of their troops, no less) but neither was willing to stop. “But you can’t contradict me like that!”

“I thought you _liked_ me, Kylo.”

“I do! I just – ugh… they need to _respect_ me…”

“And they will!” said Hux. “They will. Nobody’s going to hear from or see these Stormtroopers. They’re going to stay out here, pretending High Command is still in operation.”

“Why do we need to lie?!”

Hux opened the door to Kylo’s side of the shuttle, back ramrod straight. His lungs burned for a decent breath. Kylo glared at him, but climbed into the shuttle. What a gentleman, opening the door for his paramour. What a dutiful devotee of the Order, to alleviate Lord Ren of this minute inconvenience. Hux followed him in. Even in their helmets, he could imagine that the Stormtroopers he saw before the door closed wore looks of bafflement.

“It won’t do to have the First Order looking in any way divided,” Hux explained immediately once they were alone. “And it won’t do to have _you_ looking like a destructive, murderous tyrant whose first exercise of authority was to eliminate the only check to his power. People already think that of you. Isn’t it better for us to have a High Command whose agenda is in harmony with that of our Supreme Leader? Isn’t it better if the High Command we fabricate stands in solidarity with you? We can do without the _Eclipse_ in our fleet. We have many other ships. This one can serve the First Order best by remaining where it is.”

Kylo sulked in the pilot’s seat, fuming and twitching with each point Hux made. “They weren’t the only check to my power,” he muttered.

“I assume you are referring to me,” said Hux.

Kylo only rolled his eyes. Hux had stolen the line meant to inch Kylo further into him. Good, thought Hux. He deserved it.  “I do like you,” he said instead.

“Yes, I know you do. Look here,” said Hux. “Perhaps I could have made my point with more propriety. I apologize.”

Kylo stopped sulking and looked wide-eyed at Hux. An apology? From him? Astounding. “It was important,” he conceded. “No. You shouldn’t apologize. You’re right.”

“But,” said Hux. “I should have made my point with more respect. They _do_ need to learn to respect you, for the Order’s sake.”

“Even if you don’t,” said Kylo.

“Exactly,” said Hux.

“In the future… let’s be prepared to consult each other before we say anything important,” Kylo suggested. “Excusing ourselves and talking in private is better than arguing in front of people, if our image is something we care about.”

“ _Yes_ ,” breathed Hux, genuinely impressed that he had made such a connection. “ _Good job_.”

Kylo reached for the starter switch, reconsidered, and let his arm fall back to his side. He leaned his head into the headrest of the pilot’s chair and took a few deep breaths. “We have a lot to consult each other about already.”

They did. The future of the First Order. The war against the Resistance. “Where do you want to start?”

“Us.”

Of course he wants to go back to _us_ , thought Hux. “We just did that. We know where we stand.”

“I don’t think I need a safeword.”

Hux ringed in a groan. How many times had he heard that? “Yes, you do.”

“I stopped you before,” Kylo pointed out. “I held your hand back before you could hit me.”

“You have to have a safeword,” Hux said dully, as he had many times. “If I’m going to do this ethically, I’m not going to do it half-way ethically. We discuss this during the drawing up of a contract.”

Kylo shrugged. “Let’s do it now. It doesn’t have to be a real contract, right? They can be verbal. The other one’s was verbal. You said so.”

“I want to make you suffer through paperwork.”

Kylo snorted a laugh. Hux had not intended for the statement to elicit such a response. “Can we just say ‘safeword’?”

“Sure,” said Hux, finding himself drained of will. The word would be efficient to use. Now calmed down enough to pilot them back to the _Finalizer_ , Kylo started the shuttle. Hux soon found himself drained of more than his will. The strength to hold his head up left him next, then the strength to hold his eyes open, although he did not fall asleep. A tension headache budded. Soon, it would bloom. A crash always followed a rush. Kylo might have felt one before turning on the shuttle – although, since he was used to situations like the one with High Command, the effect may not be as severe. Damn Hux’s weakness.

Then again, Kylo survived an argument and then a civil discussion between two adults, without violence, and that could not have been easy for him. Before that, he kissed Hux just as Hux kissed him… and poured his heart out, from his point of view. Hux glanced to his left. There indeed was Kylo Ren, slumped in his seat as the ship darted through hyperspace.

“What about the First Order,” he said. Not even a question. “What about the Resistance.”

Hux opened his mouth to tell him what about the First Order and the Resistance, but sighed. He would have to try harder. “There’s the question of what each of us individually can do, and the question of what we as the co-commanders of the First Order can do.”

“And what’s that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you do, generally. You break things, don’t you? You make messes that I clean up. I’ve got to oversee cleaning up a mess you made now. I have to oversee the repairs to the _Supremacy_. I… I have to make another speech… I have to address the First Order…” But what would he speak about today? He had used up his generic, pre-recorded speeches, stored for times when he was too busy to make a daily address about anything that might have happened recently. He could broadcast Phasma’s eulogy, but should her death even be publicized? It was too soon to say.

“Regroup?” asked Kylo.

Hux tried a couple of his deep, cleansing breaths. They might work for Kylo, but they could not work for Hux. Not right now. “Regroup,” he agreed.

 

Free of Kylo Ren’s presence, Armitage Hux could try to go on about his usual business. He had limited time, so he would have to pass some of it along to underlings or wait until the next day. He loathed any lapse of what he saw as his personal sacred duty. Hux watched the progress of his soldiers with greater diligence than most parents watched their children – certainly with greater diligence that the biological parents of his soldiers had, or none of them would be on the _Finalizer_.

But not this cycle. That could take up to two hours or more on the engaging days, and Hux had to record his daily address in the next five hours or else do it live. He had done them live before when he had to. Sometimes, despite his best efforts, the unexpected happened. However, he typically recorded them in a single take. While he had no real need to pre-record them, it would not do to risk the First Order’s image and reputation on daily live broadcasts. The daily addresses lasted under five minutes. Hux had done more in less time.

On most days, he knew exactly what to speak about in his address. Today, he had nothing. Anxiety rose and the headache began to send pain him in spikes.

Before that, he had to see about the salvaging and repairs to the _Supremacy_. His soldiers would always be there. He had to wait to consult with the Supreme Leader about their battle plans. He had just enough time to attend to those two things.

Nobody asked where he had been. Nobody seemed to have any idea that he or the Supreme Leader had been temporarily absent. Nobody knew that all twelve members of High Command were lying in more than twelve pieces – or by this time, likely incinerated or jettisoned into space.

Hux swallowed a scream as he boarded another shuttle to the wreckage of Snoke’s ship. A young cadet flew him out. If Hux had been the type of leader who piloted his own shuttles, he would have screamed in that moment of solitude. But after screaming, he might have done something rash, like flown the shuttle into the nearest red giant while continuing to scream, so it was good that he couldn’t be bothered to fly.

“Sir?” asked the cadet.

“What?” asked Hux.

“Is something the matter, Sir?”

“No. Nothing is the matter.”

“Very well, Sir.”

The cadet returned to his duty. He kept glancing sidelong at Hux under the impression that Hux would not see him. He considered saying that he was only tired or had a headache – but Armitage Hux could not look so weak in front of one of his men.

Phasma, he realized. He thought Hux was dwelling on Phasma. Her funeral had been today. It felt like weeks since that morning, since he watched Ren choke the Lieutenant… if the boy did try to report them to High Command, he would never get through…

“There you go, General.”

The crew of the _Finalizer_ had not heard about his promotion. The word _General_ came to him as a comfort, Hux found. _General_. Almost a better first name than _Armitage_. Why should it seem that way to him, after he waited so long for his rightful title?

“Thank you. Await my return.”

“Very good, Sir.”

Hux clipped across rubble and dust. Everything about him clipped. His posture. His accent. His datapad, held in front of him like a shield. A short walk’s distance from this spot, Phasma had overseen the execution of the chubby-faced Resistance girl, with her scrunched-up mouth, and FN-2187, the Hux program's one failure. Phasma’s last act. And Hux had turned his back and walked away to tend to more pressing matters, just before Phasma gave the order…

On the bridge, he had only been able to watch as everything split apart.

The bodies of FN-2187 and the chubby girl had not, to Hux’s knowledge, been found among the dead. FN-2187 was a traitor to his cause, but a soldier nonetheless. Hux’s program had trained him in situations more catastrophic than the attack on the _Supremacy_. The girl had clearly not been a soldier. She might have been burned up or torn apart. But FN-2187 might have helped her escape, mightn’t he? He looked to a deep gash in the floor, some distance to his left, barely visible as such. They might be alive. The thought pulled Hux’s upper lip into a curl of distaste. They should be dead. Phasma should be alive.

“General?”

Hux regained his composure and turned to face one of the workers overseeing the… reclamation effort. “Foreman,” he acknowledged.

The foreman furrowed his brow. A second after Hux turned around, he stopped at the sight of his face. Was something wrong with it? Did Hux look tired? Stressed? Under pressure? Maybe Hux regained a little too much composure. He narrowed his eyes and raised his eyebrows, as though daring the foreman to comment. “General Hux,” said the foreman instead. “I didn’t expect to see you two days in a row.”

“The repairs to this ship are of immense import to myself and to the First Order,” Hux said. One could say he snapped at the foreman, but the foreman had become desensitized working for the First Order.

“Of course, General,” he said. “I just thought you might have something more… important to do. Oh, I can’t let you get any closer to the break without protection, so if you give me a minute, I can – ”

“Not necessary,” said Hux. The foreman had a point. Hux should have more important things to do than hover over the wreck of the _Supremacy_. They didn’t need him. He just needed to see what they were doing for his own sake. “I won’t be long. Listen – about the bodies...”

The foreman’s face took on a look of trepidation and – ugh – sympathy. They _all_ thought this was about Phasma for him, didn’t they. “We don’t know what happened to her, General.”

“No, no. I’m looking for two among the dead. A male, dark skin, cropped hair. A female, medium skin, black hair. Stolen uniforms.”

“Male, dark skin, cropped hair. Female, medium skin, black hair. Stolen uniforms. I’ll look into it.”

“But you’ve found no one matching such descriptions?”

“No,” said the foreman. “If anybody was wrongly identified by their uniforms, that would already have been reported to you.”

Hux sucked his teeth, but nodded. “Alright. Keep track of the dead. We will memorialize them and the heroes of Starkiller as we did Phasma once all have been accounted for.”

“We’re doing everything we can,” said the foreman, trying to reassure him.

Hux wished that people would stop trying to reassure him. He told himself firmly that he would not return to the wreck tomorrow, to prove that it wasn’t some sentimental need of his. “I want you to write something down before I leave,” he said to the foreman. “Reconstruction and renovation for the ascent of the Supreme Leader is some months out – I know you’re working around the clock, and your efforts are valiant – but take this down now.”

The foreman nodded and went for a small datapad strapped to his belt.

“The throne is to be re-made to the Supreme Leader’s specifications. When you order it, order it two and a half times its current width.”

“Two and a half?” the foreman questioned.

“Who am I to question Supreme Leader Ren’s peculiarities?” Hux sighed in well-rehearsed exasperation. How could he explain the truth?

The foreman sighed too, but his was an exhalation of dread. The foreman, who toiled for the First Order’s glory, thought that both he and Hux were trapped under the thumb of a raging madman… just like Hux had until recently. Hux realized at once that in dismissing the wider throne as just more of Kylo Ren’s eccentricity, he reinforced the negative image most of the First Order’s members had of him. He could not afford to do so.

“But,” he added. “Ren isn’t Snoke. We cannot expect him to be Snoke. Why should we expect him to sit on Snoke’s throne? He’s his own man.”

“I wish – ” But the foreman stopped himself from speaking treason.

Hux knew what he would have said. “Say it.”

The foreman barely moved his lips. “I wish it was yours.”

Hux felt himself smile. “All of you do.”

“We do.”

He nodded once, hardly inclining his head. “Carry on, foreman. You’re fighting the good fight here, just like our Stormtroopers. You’re doing your part, and your part is essential. The First Order needs every pair of hands it can get. I don’t want you to forget that.”

“I won’t, General.”

Hux turned to go, but stopped. Calculated. He was letting the foreman in on a great secret. Soon, he would learn that Hux had been promoted to Grand Marshal, one way or another. Hux would seem as a great manipulator, the power behind the two-and-a-half-times-wide throne pulling Lord Ren’s strings. “Don’t worry about the state of our leadership. That’s an order.” He knew that the perpetually cold glint in his (admittedly) tired eyes would leave the foreman with an invigorating sense of mystery. Cautious optimism. He would use that to carry him on his work, inspiring his underlings. It would not do to leave him demoralized – but Hux was not about to tell him the _truth_.

Unfortunately, this did nothing to alleviate Hux’s own sense of unease. He flew back to the _Finalizer_ scrolling through his personal com messages. Nothing about bodies of any kind in improper uniforms.

They weren’t dead.

They should be dead.

Phasma should be alive.

“ _Tchff_.”

Hux saw the cadet look at him with yet another expression of _concern_. He looked back at his com to avoid it. Concern should be banned. Eliminated. Eradicated. Thrown into a haphazard, ungainly pile with sympathy, empathy, and compassion, then doused in the last of the low-grade fuel appropriated from the defeated Resistance and lit aflame on live Galaxy-wide broadcast. No more of _that_ nonsense, Hux would sneer to his people.

But Kylo would not allow such a thing, would he. He affronted Hux with more of his oppressive concern than anyone else did. More than anyone ever had. Concern risked raining down on him, heavy and thick, it would drip off of him and slow him down and finally soak into him just like Ren had soaked into his brain and stained him.

 _I pity you_ , he had said, because he had Brendol killed. Why? _Why_?! Brendol deserved to die! Armitage’s life was better without him! Why did that imbecile feel _sorry_ for him?! Over _that_ , of all things?! And Armitage kissed him. He let that tongue in his mouth, he let those hands touch him, he let that breath mingle with his own, and he wanted to do all of it again!

The second scream he had to swallow didn’t go down as easily.

Hux left the shuttle. He had to write his speech. He had to record it. He had to think of literally anything to say to the Galaxy, and all he could think of was a condemnation of everyone who tried to care about him. While he was right to want to scream at people for that, he mustn’t tell anyone about it. He went not to his quarters, but to his locker in the _Finalizer’s_ fitness facility. He could allow himself an hour and a half. No more. That was pushing it.

The pool? No. Too exposed. He had an all-too-clear vision of finding it empty, then turning around five seconds later and seeing Kylo floating in it naked.

The bag? No. Too much open aggression, and Hux loathed being seen doing anything he wasn’t good at.

The treadmill. He could pretend to run away from Kylo Ren. Or he could pretend that he was running to Kylo Ren, to drop-kick him into a trash compactor where he and his concern for Hux belonged.

After a quick change into the proper attire and stowing his uniform in the locker, Hux continued his marching into the gym. Stormtroopers, officers, and civilian workers alike, ironically indistinguishable out of their uniforms, gave him a wide berth and avoided eye contact. The treadmill next to the one he mounted happened to be occupied, but before Hux had finished adjusting it to his preferences the occupant vanished. They were not afraid of violent outbursts, as they were with Kylo Ren. Just the yelling.

Hux began to run. A sea of frothing sympathy lapped at his ankles. A tide was coming to smother him. Kylo Ren lurked under it. A monster from the depths of an abyss of sludge. The trash compactor Hux wanted to condemn him to. Where he belonged. Hux stood over the pit. His laughter pierced the air above them, up to an infinitely high ceiling, gloating over Ren’s humiliating defeat and defiant of his title.

Not fast enough.

He jabbed the button to increase the speed of the belt under his running shoes. Faster. No, faster than that. Slightly too fast, perfect. Hux needed to run slightly too fast, needed every step to mean a fall or an escape, needed them all to matter. He needed his legs to burn and his gasps for air to grow loud and desperate. He needed to fight to keep himself up… and he needed to succeed at it.

The sprint exhausted him far before his allotted time ran out. He pushed himself past what he would consider his limit – as the officer in charge, he could not afford to spend himself to the point of uselessness after a workout. He might be needed. Hux could not afford to rest. But when he knew he could not put his foot down again, he caught one of the treadmill’s handles and straddled the belt, balanced on either side, and looked down.

The belt raced by under him. Had he been running _that_ fast?

Walking back to the locker room past the stares, he learned that yes, he had been running that fast and no, he should not have been. He had lasted only twenty minutes, far shorter than he would have liked. Could he even feel his legs? He caught sight of himself in the mirror. Where a pale face had been when he arrived, a soaked, flushed one looked back at him now. Disgusting.

Someone else was in the locker room. Hux couldn’t change here or trust himself to shower. He carried his uniform to his quarters – unheard of for him. People saw. They would think that their General was falling apart.

And they would be correct.

Hux tried washing his problems away next. The sweat and gel washed out of his hair, evoking the imaginings of concern in a physical manifestation, but when he left the shower he felt numb, not refreshed. Without bothering to tie his robe or dry his hair, he fell onto his bed. The datapad bore a blank screen except for a flashing cursor. No speech came to him. Not even a theme that he could jot down to start an outline.  The thermos of Tarine tea had gone cold and stale, but he used it to swallow two painkillers for the headache which had returned with a vengeance. Hux clutched both the pad and the thermos, as if they could anchor him to something. He knew that the hands holding them looked weak and colorless mere minutes after leaving his shower, just like the face he saw in the mirrors of the gym as he walked to the treadmill. They started to shake. It spread to the rest of him. Hux put the tea on his nightstand to focus on the datapad, but he could barely focus on breathing.

He was finally alone, and thereby open to nobody but himself. The tide that had lapped around him, threatening to sweep him away, finally crashed down. Hux grabbed one of his pillows, buried his face in it, and screamed.

Ren. The Resistance. The colossal stupidity of a Galaxy filled with his inferiors. The weight of other people’s emotions towards him, the fear and the concern alike. Ren. Ren. Ren.

Neither he nor Kylo had any ideas to offer one another about the future of the First Order, because they never would. He could not save it from Kylo, or from chaos itself. They were one and the same. He should have killed him. He should not let himself be weak, be preyed upon, and be slowly seduced into ruination, because his ruination was the First Order’s. But of course, he was letting it happen. He was weak-willed. Useless. Armitage Hux was a fraud. He could not accomplish anything with or without Kylo Ren. His speeches were all the same recycled tripe, he could be controlled with the barest scraps of praise or taunting, he wasn’t even a halfway decent tactician…

 _No_.

The voice in his head was not his own, and not Brendol’s, as it often was during these moments. It was much deeper. It was there to soothe him, not to beat him until he stopped feeling the pain.

 _I hate you_ , Armitage thought back at Kylo, glaring at a wall as though Kylo would appear in front of him. _You did this_.

 _I gave you uncertainty?_ came Kylo’s voice. _That’s why this is happening to you. Because you’re not sure of what’s going to happen next. We’ll figure it out soon, and then you won’t be uncertain anymore._

_You ruined everything!_

_Shhh._

What he felt next was not like Kylo’s arms around him, but something in his mind told him it was. Armitage’s next utterance of his rage burst from him before dissolving into a choke. Kylo shushed him again. His quarters seemed as far away as the door in the interrogation room had when he was reaching for it, trying to push Kylo out.

_I can’t come to you now._

_Good._

_But I can distract you._

He saw the throne again, with the two of them seated on it, himself in pure almost-gleaming white and Kylo in black so deep it could unsettle. The Armitage that tilted his head back for his Lord to kiss his neck looked so much brighter, so much more alive than the Armitage he had seen in the mirrors. The soft kisses and sucking at his neck brought a gasp out of him.

_I could never sound like that!_

_Let yourself be him._

Let himself be that Armitage? The one Kylo was carrying to bed? The one lying stripped and prone under him, open and receptive, yet quaking with trepidation at the unknown? When Kylo took a handful of his soft red hair and pulled it back to stare down at him, the Armitage in his quarters felt the tug. The dark eyes held his. He felt the thrill of knowing that both of them had defeated each other, but that his defeat was the one at hand and he could never return from it. Kylo pulled him, turned him onto his stomach, and held both of his wrists behind his back in one hand.

_Yes._

He said yes not to Kylo, but to the version of himself who was in the final stage of his seduction. The Armitage trying to wrest himself out of Kylo’s grip and grab him by his collar. He could see the strap of black leather around Kylo neck, but could not touch it. He had let this happen to himself by wanting it.

_Never forget, Armitage._

His pet has risen up and claimed Armitage as his mate. He would never be satisfied without the collar staying out of his reach. With acceptance came the greatest swell of terror and joy he had ever in his thirty-four years known. He might have screamed again, or his voice might have been stolen away. Still holding him down, Kylo exerted his claim to the rest of his body, and Armitage could say nothing but _yes_. Each touch and kiss took an unnameable something from him. When it was all gone, he called for Kylo. Forced into stillness, in surrender to everything Kylo had to offer him, he let his fate be sealed.

Shuddering on his bed in his quarters, but unable to move of his own will, he saw the couple he had to leave behind. Kylo wore the same dark expression he had when Armitage called him by his name after their first kiss. His hair brushed Armitage’s skin when he bent to lick the back of his neck. Something in his demeanor had changed. Confidence, he realized. Kylo had grown to embody rulership in this future. He turned his attention to himself. Most of his smaller form was hidden beneath Kylo’s. Red hair stuck in strands to his forehead. He kept pushing back against his lover after the act was done and the soft noises he swore he could never produce kept floating from his parted, bitten lips. Could he ever achieve such a state in reality?

Armitage only knew that he was attractive because he heard the whispers and saw the longing gazes in men’s eyes. He would never have believed it on his own. But when he looked at the Armitage who lay glassy-eyed and open-mouthed on the massive bed under Kylo, he had to acknowledge _that_ Armitage as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're bein' Kylo next, y'all.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is Kylo Ren?

When Kylo found Armitage, Armitage was in pain.

This was true in the immediate sense and in a broader one. Five years ago, Snoke told Ben Solo that they had completed the first stage of his training. He had earned the name Kylo Ren, and he was ready to meet his counterpart from the First Order. But Snoke was wrong. Nothing could have readied him to meet Armitage Hux. Kylo had been twenty-four years old, and looked from behind his mask – where, he thought, nobody could see him stare. Armitage had been twenty-nine years old, and looked nothing like his age. He hadn’t looked his age until a few days ago, thought Kylo, as he laid sheets of inked paper out to dry.

Kylo could not remember now what exactly Snoke had said. The less he remembered of the old bastard, the better. All he remembered was the voice, sounding frail and yet infinite, scratching out the words “ _General Hux_ ”.

But that could not be a General, thought a younger Kylo. None of the Generals he had seen so far in the First Order looked like _that_. The red-haired man in front of him wore a General’s uniform, but he was too young to be a General and too… small? But then again, no, he was barely shorter than Kylo.

Too delicate. He had a build that would never be anything but slim and refined, right down to his cheekbones. His eyelashes, which held Kylo’s attention in a way he never thought eyelashes could, flitted above them, catching the artificial light of the ship’s interior, like dust used to when Kylo brushed it away from paper… like first hint of sunset across a pale sky. He had mouth that looked insolent even when it rested, and even when he replied to Snoke’s orders and questions with every trapping of respect. It twisted over the ramparts of greatcoat and impeccable posture. It was like a flag flying in defiance of everything he looked out on from the fortress of himself.

The eyes. Those _eyes_ , with which he looked out on everything that he saw… they were like two jewel-like windows of green-grey ice… or blue-grey ice… ice shifting and yet forever frozen under those delicate beams of his lashes, holding back more fire. Impenetrable. Unassailable. Free of any regrets. Kylo knew all of this when they turned to look at him, and he at them. Ice. Glass. Stone. All of those and the strongest materials the great minds of the Galaxy had brought into existence. All of those at once, guarding a flame. A secret. A treasure.

How could someone like this fight in _wars_? Wars were ugly. The only way Hux could be prettier, thought Kylo, was if he wore his hair out of the helmet he had it glued into, but he immediately realized that Hux could not afford to wear it down. If he did that he would be too pretty to be a General. Nobody would follow his orders. They would be too distracted by him to listen. Then again, the enemy would be too distracted to fight. They would call off the war altogether until he went home.

The man’s lip curled into the hint of a sneer. Could he see Kylo’s thoughts? Could he sense his fascination? Did he have the Force? Kylo knew that if anyone had the gall to stop a war over this General Hux and his cheekbones, General Hux would not have it. He would refuse to go home. Kylo liked that. He suddenly wished to _make_ him go home and leave the business of the First Order to his inferiors. To seize this tiny, defiant little spark before him and lock him in his own frigid stone castle, and to never let anyone but the two of them know that a key existed.

He stared from behind his mask. He realized that the mask did not prevent Hux from noticing his stare, and that Hux was staring back at him. The flag of Hux’s sneer unfurled to its full length. His chin jutted out. The fiery rays of dusk, the pale sky, and the sneering banner stood in defiance of everything that the General looked _down_ on – and Kylo came to understand in that moment that this included _him_.

This man hated _him_.

“ _Hmph_ ,” went General Hux, and turned his attention back to Supreme Leader Snoke.

Armitage had been in pain then. He kept the pain hidden beneath a tumultuous, frothing surface of overblown ego, his fixation on the Order, and most of all, the endless rage that seemed to come from nothing and find targets to hate rather than emerge in response to a stimulus when Kylo visualized it. To Kylo, the General’s surface thoughts were pitifully easy to detect and always had been after that initial flash of their first meeting, but he knew now that the surface concealed the depths, rather than betrayed the depths as with most minds. He could tell that like himself, Armitage was passionate, dedicated, and perpetually enraged at the foolishness of the Republic. Unlike himself, he possessed a hint of discipline, although he often let his emotions (which he had) carry him toward regrettable choices.

Unfortunately for the General, Kylo was right – he was not the warrior he fancied himself and was never meant to be. Kylo had quickly shifted from enshrining this thought with feelings of protectiveness to heaping it with derision: General Hux slinked his way through the ranks by sending others to do his dirty work and had never seen combat himself. He could hardly abide the sight of real violence. Others in pain, yes, he relished it, but true acts of war? He would turn his eyes away. Kylo knew those things were still true, but his derision had left him. Brendol Hux forced Armitage into a mold of what he wanted his son to be. This killed Brendol, but left Armitage living the only life he had ever been taught to live under his influence.

Kylo made his error by never pushing beyond the surface of Armitage’s mind, and by forming his wrong ideas about who mattered in his life and in the story of the Galaxy. He assumed he would find more of the same beneath the surface of Armitage's thoughts. He decided that there was no beautiful, delicate secret and no wall of never-melting, color-shifting ice, only a shallow pool of lava that burned in vulgarity. He had come to believe that only those chosen by the Force could influence the story of either the Galaxy or of Kylo Ren (they were largely one and the same), and that he only need be concerned with those like himself. But that could not be true, because ultimately most of those gifted in the Force had proven unworthy of his concern as _people_. They were mere adversaries. Skywalker, for example. Snoke. Rey. Two of those were gone. In the balance of the Force, he and Rey were the only two people who mattered – but he had to face the fact, now, that there was more to the Galaxy’s story and more to his own. The picture was bigger than he thought. Why did he care to unify and help the Galaxy if most of it did not matter? It always had, and deep down he had always grudgingly known it did. He should not have dismissed Armitage and his abilities. He had been right the first time he saw his face. Kylo _had_ seen what was there, not simply what he had wanted to see.

His resentment, he thought, had motivated the erroneous judgment. He resented the red-haired beauty who saw him only as an unknowable, dangerous threat to his own rise to power when Kylo knew himself to be so much more. Under Snoke’s tutelage Kylo learned about power. Snoke taught him to disdain that which he could not have to prevent it from holding power over him. Kylo disdained Armitage. He deemed him a sycophant to anyone who wielded power, yet who continually schemed to dispatch anything that stood between him and his quest for the unlimited power he felt entitled to – not unlike Kylo.

Armitage had no need of disdaining those who he could not have. He could have had his pick of men (at least, those who were so inclined) in the Order. Armitage loathed Kylo. Kylo could feel it. Yet, Armitage went out of his way to antagonize him and relish Kylo’s failures. He took any opportunity to deride and embarrass him in front of Snoke. He took to their rivalry with something resembling glee. And yet, Armitage thought Kylo was beneath him. It didn’t make sense. Why waste so much time and energy on him, if he was so much lower? Everything about Armitage, his actions, and the way he viewed Kylo as though he were as even less desirable than everyone else stoked Kylo’s resentment further, but he never let it boil over into hate. He refused to sink to Hux’s level. He wanted to drive his own head into a wall every time he caught himself giving so much as a passing thought to him.

Now that he knew some of the story of Armitage and Brendol Hux, Kylo could begin to understand why the Grand Marshal was who he was. He knew he still had much to learn. He also had much to teach Armitage.

But before he saw anything inside his mind, or felt any of the hate, he adored him the second he laid eyes on him. The hate that Armitage directed at him immediately thereafter did not change that. Kylo giving up as a result did not change that. His bad behavior with the scavenger girl did not change that.

His failure to push past the flaming wall of hatred did not change that, either, but he should not have allowed himself to be so weak as to turn away from it. Kylo should have faced the fire and charged right into it. If he had done that sooner, things could have been different. Better. So much could have made things different or better, so many things both in and out of Kylo’s control.

He had the perfect chance, once. It was the first time Hux saw him without his mask. Kylo knew that had been his best chance now, far in retrospect. It might have been his only chance. Snoke had sent Hux to fetch him, although when he looked back on the incident, why Hux needed to go and fetch him was beyond Kylo. Hux always seemed to be running after him. He always seemed to know where Kylo was without asking.

_Huh,_ thought Kylo. He would discover the reason later.

On that day, Kylo had become aware of someone watching him as he engaged in his training. Not only had Hux seen him without his mask, but without his shirt. He did not have time to think that perhaps he could change Hux’s opinion of him by displaying himself. He only had time to realize that although Hux acknowledged him for all that he was, it changed nothing.

“Why do you always _stare_ at me?” Hux had drawled.

Kylo thought that Hux knew exactly why and that he intended to mock him with the question.

“Why do you always stare at _me_?” Kylo had responded, and Hux had at once turned away, snapping at him to follow. Snoke demanded their presence.

It had taken him less than a day cycle to get closer to the man than he had in five years. All he had to do was try. He had spent the past five years failing Armitage, who needed and deserved someone who would _try_ instead of seeing him as the wall he erected and using the images painted on the wall to achieve their own ends. All he had to do, the whole time, was put forth the effort…

And Snoke had to be dead. Yeah, there was that. The thought comforted him. Although he usurped the Supreme Leader’s throne for reasons that made him want to break everything in his reach when he remembered them (stupid, stupid, idiot, how could he have fallen for her tricks, he was always too needy, look where it got him, stupid, weak), he had obtained something greater by losing his intended prize. Kylo had not missed his chance. If he took that chance, it would have led to disaster. He could see innumerable tragic ends to that story. Snoke had to be dead before Kylo could do be allowed to do anything that benefitted himself without benefitting his Master.

No more Masters... except for the one Kylo chose and mastered in turn.

The black crystal, taken from Snoke’s ring, was not what it used to be. It was not what it was when Snoke took it from beneath Vader’s castle. It was more. After years in Snoke’s possession, it had become charged with such a power, such a darkness, that the first time Kylo had touched even the gold band of the ring his skin felt cold – or perhaps, so hot that he felt cold. It still disturbed him to look at, but the sensation had grown duller. Kylo would not retreat from the challenge the crystal presented to him and anyone else who would approach it. He would tame it.

What the Darksaber had been once, it had grown beyond, and if it would answer to any master it would answer to a master who had had grown beyond himself in the darkness. It would answer to Kylo Ren.

When Kylo closed his eyes on the sight of the black crystal, a hilt dissembled into components, and his grandfather’s helmet, then opened the eyes of his mind to his consciousness within the _Finalizer_ , Armitage had also been in a renewed, urgent pain.

His consciousness within the _Finalizer_ began as his consciousness within himself. Then within the circle starting with himself, reaching to Vader’s helmet, then ending with himself again. Then within the room, then within the greater unit of his quarters, then one wing of the _Finalizer_ , then the whole Star Destroyer.

He felt the great orbital hum of the crew’s thoughts and surface emotions – but unlike the other innumerable experiences of the great hum, something punctured it, because his mind knew this something mattered to him. Kylo turned his attention to it. He focused in on it until he was beside it and the rest of the _Finalizer_ pushed aside. It was Armitage, gripped by terror of an unknowable future.

Kylo alleviated his fears.

When Armitage’s mind stilled he recalled the memory of Brendol that he had found in him. Anyone could be called from the Force if the living had memories of them. He could not know if the Brendol he thought he sensed was the real one, or if Armitage could see their minds becoming temporarily linked. He hoped so. He hoped Brendol saw what he had done, and he hoped the Armitage saw him show it off.

_Look at what I did to your son. I showed him the truth. I will keep showing him the truth until he can’t lie to himself anymore. He won’t hear your voice. He’ll hear mine._

But the faint notion of Brendol Hux dissipated. Behind it Kylo saw what he had first intended to see.

_Grandfather._

Vader appeared to him clearer than Brendol despite Kylo having no personal memories of him. He had those which he had harvested from others old enough to have known him, but he could never know if they were enough. Vader came to him regardless, for what in Kylo’s estimation would be the last time.

_I still feel the light calling me. But it is a lie. It has nothing left to offer me. I have found something greater that asks me not to change, but to be who I was meant to be. I am still afraid. I do not know the limits of my own abilities, in and outside of the Force. But I have purpose. My fear cannot be used to deter me. I will still finish what you started. But I have found my own strength to do so._

He offered Vader the image of Armitage Hux – the General as Kylo had met him, then as the wretch Kylo had led to the interrogation chair, then as the Grand Marshal that Kylo had shown Hux himself.

_This is who he will become as I become the perfect incarnation of myself. I have made mistakes. I have wronged him. I lashed out against him in anger. I showed him that I was no different than the other men who have held power over him and abused it. But they are dead, and I am alive, and I will lead us to our destiny. I will lead him out of his past and into the future. If you deny me, I will continue on without your blessing._

In the past, Vader had only projected to him nigh-indecipherable, nebulous thoughts of darkness. When presented with Armitage he did not respond initially. Kylo began to think that he had angered his grandfather. But then he saw the clearest image he had ever seen in his meditations.

A woman.

He knew who Padme Amidala was, but he had never seen her outside of holos. Through Vader’s memories she looked brighter. More alive. He had never seen Anakin Skywalker anywhere at all, but that had to be him next to her, smiling. That was Vader himself, in the self he had fractured from upon his death. It was him, and yet it was not him. Anakin, somewhere, was Vader, and yet he was no longer Vader.

Had that been a lie?

He saw her being choked.

_No. It was not a lie._

He insisted to Vader that it had not been a lie even as Padme’s body collapsed.

_I know you didn’t kill her._

An Empress, beautiful and wise, watching over the Galaxy, guiding her husband’s hand and tempering his power into a weapon that could never be broken or defeated.

_I promise._

_No._

Vader directed his memories back to Snoke’s throne room. He saw his hand outstretched to the scavenger.

_I don’t want to think about this!_

Kylo misunderstood the point Vader had meant to make. A girl he just met, offered the same seat of power as Darth Vader offered to his wife? The mother of his children? The heart nearest to his own, the woman he knew was not only worthy to share his reign, but essential to it?

Kylo had insulted his grandfather.

_I’m sorry._

_You are nothing like me. You can never be._

_You’re right. I’m not._

_You know **nothing**._

_I know that I made a mistake, and that he needs me to save him._

_You believe that he will be the one to save you!_

_He already has!_

Vader’s disgust swirled up around him like smoke filling the air, but Kylo did not allow it to push him back into the material world. He held onto Vader’s image as a fixed point. Memories and emotions from both of them blew past him. Vader’s disgust, Kylo’s resolve. Kylo knew that he was the hero who would save Armitage Hux, and together they would save the Galaxy. Vader thought that he was a fool, looking for validation and attention to save him from his own self-doubt. It hurt Kylo to look back on his mistakes, but he made them. They were his. They brought him this far, and he had accomplished more than Vader did. If only Kylo made mistakes, he would never have had the chance to make any mistakes. He would not exist without Vader’s mistakes.

_I don’t **need** you! I don’t **need** your blessing!_

_Then why are you still here?_

A Galaxy, peaceful and secure. Two men watching over it and each other, guiding it, ensuring that they served and protected it as it needed. Two blades, one red and one black, crossed…

_Spare me._

Setting the heavy-handed metaphor aside, Kylo found that the whirlwind had released them.

_I don’t care if you approve. I’m nothing like you. I can never be you. But because I’m not like you, I’m the one who can do what needs to be done. Armitage is the one **I** know that I need beside me, just as your wife was the one **you** knew you needed beside you. Look what happened to you without her. I’ve already surpassed you. I’ll continue to do so. Help me put it back together, or I’ll do it alone. I wanted to reassure you, Grandfather. I wanted you to know that I have everything I need to make your dream a reality. I’ve done that. What will you do?_

Kylo felt the hard, smooth surface of his quarters’ floor below him in the way that one hears noises in the distance. In front of Vader he floated in the expanse of the Force, yet just outside the border of where Vader had come to him from. Like fog, it would always remain just out of his reach.

Vader gave him a last vision of another woman. Not Padme Amidala, but one who in his grandfather’s memories held a different kind of significance. Broken. Beaten. Bloodied. Kylo could see her and her wounds as plainly as if she lay before him with her last breath leaving her body. Dead, then buried on the nowhere, nothing desert planet where she had lived.

Kylo understood.

_The ones you loved were taken from you. Mine have left me behind. What would you have me do if she refuses me?_

Vader never answered his question.

Why Vader had the black blade did not matter to Kylo. Snoke took it from beneath his grandfather’s castle on Mustafar, then separated the crystal from its hilt when he grew too decrepit to wield it. Perhaps Vader had been trying to hide it from the Emperor, so the Emperor could not use it as he did everyone and everything else. Perhaps he had been unable to use it. Kylo would not waste the time he had to hear his grandfather’s voice on unimportant questions. He only cared that _he_ had it now. He did not care about what “right” he did or did not have to it. He obtained it by defeating his enemy, and now it belonged to him, just like everything else that had been Snoke’s. Like the Galaxy. And the First Order. And the _Supremacy_. And Armitage.

Pieces separated themselves, suspended in a row. They stood at attention, ready to serve their Lord and carry out his will. Kylo felt the darkness moving toward its rightful seat of power, as surely as planets moved through their orbits. As celestial bodies align to create an eclipse, as a monarch’s crown descends to mark him, so did the black crystal into the machine.

Kylo would seize the power to protect the things he valued. He thought of worlds at war with themselves, petty quarrels escalating into bloodshed. Sentients fighting to the death over scarce resources, when plenty waited for them on other planets – perhaps in the same system! Conflict left room for scum like the Resistance and the Rebellion to gain a foothold in the minds of those who lacked the knowledge to know better. They would always promise more, more freedom, more light, more ambiguous “good” – and they could offer nothing. It infuriated him. Hope. Hope for what? For an endless loop of unrest ending in war ending in uneasy attempts at peace ending in unrest ending in the same, again and again and again?

He was hope. There would be no place in his domain for anyone who tried to stop him. The girl’s face was the one that flashed through his mind, smiling. The impudence of that smile! She had no idea what she was fighting for! No idea what good she could have granted the stars, but instead looked at all of them and told them they were unworthy when she left him! He believed that she deserved better than the fools who huddled together to form the Resistance. But he was wrong. He would not make that mistake again.

He thought about Armitage, marching forward into a future of the same cycle of oppression that had blinded him all his life. He was still as beautiful as ever, smiling coldly over his triumph with endless hoards of Stormtroopers between him and any spark of dissent, but he would not remain so. Trapped by it he would become like all of the other men who had inflicted it on him – Brendol, Snoke, the High Command. Kylo could not allow that to happen. If it did, Armitage would fuel the very false hope that would lead to another war. His fear of such a future lit his soul on fire – but he knew he had the power to prevent it from happening. He already had. He had resolve.

And Leia Organa.

_Mother._

His mother was not like the rest of the Resistance – she could not have born him otherwise. She was Vader’s daughter, with more of him in her heart than his uncle. The right of Vader’s legacy passed through _her_ to Kylo.

Unless… unless it all meant nothing. Unless his bloodline truly meant nothing. Unless his mother was just like everyone else in the end.

Would she deny her son? Would she deny reason? Or would she accept her son not as her son, but as the man he had become? Would she let herself be saved, and begin anew with him in the world he would build? He had never had the chance to speak with her. She could still choose him. They could still have a home.

If she proved as undeserving of him as the others, his mother alone would have stood a chance of tempting him back to the light. That one lie, more than any of the others, might have lured him back. But that could not happen now. If there was no birthright to the legacy of Darth Vader, that meant that Kylo came to it of his own merit. If there was, his mother would join him. The latter would please him. The former he could accept once he let himself feel his grief and pass through it.

He lacked the power to stop his mother from denying him. But he possessed the power to face the truth, even if it brought him pain. The pieces clicked into place. Kylo returned to his quarters slowly. Once he felt orientated enough to the beat of his heart, he concentrated on his breathing. No rush, although he wanted to enjoy the results of his efforts. The straight, dull silver hilt focused before his eyes first. Kylo’s breath stirred the few flecks of dust, neglected by cleaning droids in the tumult of the past few cycles, between him and the weapon. It scraped across the floor to meet his hand halfway when he raised it. His arm felt heavy. The feeling of the hilt in his fist, however clumsily he clutched it, made it feel light.

Beyond it, he looked at his grandfather’s disfigured helmet. In the end, he may have given Kylo his aid. He never acknowledged that he was, never gave or explicitly withheld approval. How much of it had been him, and how much Vader? Maybe he never helped at all.

It no longer mattered.

Kylo shut his eyes again and sat up. The edges of the hilt reminded him of so many hard, jarring, and angular things in his personal history. The ships of the First Order. The cold jab of realization every time he stumbled on his journey and had to fight his way out of whatever mess he made when he didn’t think things through. His parents fighting. Armitage’s face. The look in Rey’s eyes when she let her hate show through them.

Like at that very moment, in fact.

Kylo finally noticed her, standing behind Vader’s helmet and blurred with white light around the edges. The two of them stared at each other, Kylo like a wounded animal at the end of a hunter’s spear and Rey like she had seen something unsanitary, distasteful, and even downright blasphemous.

“You,” he said.

“ _You_ ,” she retorted.

“You’re finished,” said Kylo before she could get another word in. He remembered Armitage telling him never to strike first after he struck first. Armitage wasn’t there. “The Resistance is finished. _You_ could have survived. But I was wrong about you. You don’t deserve to be saved from them. You’ll die along with them, and I’ll have lost _nothing_.”

“I don’t see how you could have anything left to cut off of your soul. You’ve already lost your mother,” she retorted.

“Whatever happens between me and her is between me and her,” said Kylo. “Not me and you. As long as she’s alive, it’s not over for us. And I know that she is alive.”

 “General Organa knows that her son is no longer in this world!” cried Rey. “How could you do this to her?!”

“If it’s the case that her son is no longer in this world,” said Kylo. “Then I have never had a mother, and I don’t care what I’ve done to General Organa. But you’d want me to think that whether it was true or not, wouldn’t you? You clearly believe it. I can feel that you believe it. That doesn’t make it true. Would you tell her what I’ve said to you? Would you burden her that way? You care about her as you believe I don’t. Is she your mother now? Have you finally found one?”

“You can tell her yourself,” spat Rey. “And she can tell you you’re a fool herself.”

“No. You’re the fools,” said Kylo. “I wonder if you’ll try to pull me to the light again, once you realize you can’t stand against me. I wonder if you think I’d fall for your tricks again.”

He could see her mind at work. Pulling him to the light? His mother? Her tricks?

“You can’t crush hope itself,” she said. “You can’t strangle it out of every system in the Galaxy, no matter how hard you choke them.”

Kylo said nothing. She wasn’t wrong. He already knew that.

“The light will never go out,” Rey continued. “Even if you do wipe out the Resistance, something will take its place. You know that… you have to know that. You know the Force, Ben. What could be on the dark side for you? What could possibly be there? What good is power to you, if you lose everything?”

Kylo still said nothing. He opened the smallest, most unobtrusive leak in the dam of his mind… she would think it was an accident… he simply _couldn’t_ control his emotions anymore, the pain was simply _too_ great… she would believe that, he estimated.

“Everyone’s left you,” she said, sounding hesitant. “You inflict nothing but pain and darkness, then you punish people when they turn away from it…”

Now he opened his mouth again. “Including you.”

Rey looked like she could spit. She fought, so, so hard, to keep the muscles of her face from twisted into the same bawling of the little girl who had been abandoned on Jakku. Kylo though, with satisfaction, that she deserved to bawl, and to be seen bawling. But even if she lost her temper now, she would not cry. The same contortions would distort her unobtrusive, inoffensively ordinary face, but she would not cry. Only scream. “I couldn’t have joined you. Not as you are now. Not as you would have me become. Would you have me be like you?”

“I would have you cease to exist,” he said, evenly.

“But what… what did you expect? _Then_? Did you really think – ”

“I thought you were someone else,” said Kylo. “Someone who could understand me.

Rey shook her head slowly. Deeper confusion, not clarity. “I don’t believe anyone could understand you and still want to join you.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I mean outside of _you_!”

“Someone will,” said Kylo. “Very soon. I can feel it.”

He had her furious and baffled at his words and the miniscule upward twitch of his lips. Was it her? Was it someone else? Kylo allowed only an abstract impression through the leak. He let it widen by a hair. Ideally, she would form her own impression of his impression of his own emotions: he saw someone as the highest reflection of what he loved about his world, his life, and his experiences. He saw the magnitude of his personal failings. He saw a future filled with a partnership that affirmed the worth he knew himself to have.

She might believe it to be her, if she was simple enough to believe that he would conflate his lust for her, his respect of her power, and his thirst for the small kindness she had fed him with what he was showing her now. She might not, if she had any sense at all.

Her eyes narrowed. “That person doesn’t exist. You’ll never find that.”

He sneered. “I already have. You’re no longer necessary to me.”

She blinked a few times and shook her head, as though she could not connect the two statements together. Like what he had just said had nothing to do with their conversation. Did she… did she not know? Could she possibly _not know_?! “I… what?”

“You’re nothing to me now,” said Kylo. The awful suspicion that he made no sense to her began to boil, rising up the back of his neck. “I have something better. I have something that the light can never compete with, and that nobody can ever take away from me. Something that won’t… won’t ask me to change, won’t lie to me, won’t…”

Rey never figured it out. She stared blankly at him. Kylo’s heart began to race. She didn’t know. She didn’t know! She never realized that he had wanted her, and now she thought he was some kind of lunatic! More than she already had! He didn’t want to win her to his side any longer. If she decided she wanted him, she would die all the same. But she had to be made to see herself as garbage, first! She had to know that she was insignificant! That he had everything he wanted, without her! That his desire for her was a simple lapse in judgment that any man could have briefly fallen into!

And for her to know that, she would have to know that he had wanted her at one point.

Which she never realized.

“Is it that thing in your hand?” she asked, sounding even younger and more ignorant than she usually did.

How could a sword fit the description he had just given her?! But then he realized he had been saying “something” not “someone” – Armitage’s attention. Simple possession of Armitage as an object would hold no meaning. He had meant Armitage’s attention, and someday soon, his affection, once he accepted that such things existed. He had a more difficult task set before him than his grandfather had, in that respect. Nobody ever beat Padme Amidala. Nobody told her she was weak and useless. Nobody taught her to live passing from one cycle of pain into another. Nobody pitted her and her future husband against one another.

“In your hand,” Rey repeated, pointing at the hilt of the Darksaber. “That thing. Just there.”

“No,” said Kylo. “But… it’s evidence.”

“Evidence of _what_?!”

Kylo raised the hilt and pointed it at the phantom of Rey. He could see her face over it, ending at her neck, as though the blade would separate it from her body if he called it. Showing her would leave the greatest impression. Kylo knew that the black crystal would answer to his passions. In his hands, the saber would overflow with power. As evidence of his personal evolution, it was only apt that he and the sword should strengthen one another beyond their limits. He activated the blade.

Every source of light in the room – the ones above him and the halo of white around Rey – dimmed almost to nothing. A roaring black swath burst from the hilt in Kylo’s hand, sucking all sources of light into itself and replacing them with sporadic flashes of white crackling lightning. It shook his entire arm and deprived it of feeling. When Kylo was blown off his feet and into the wall behind him, he could no longer see Rey. Their connection flickered out, and so too did Kylo’s consciousness.

 

Armitage Hux thought he _might_ have heard something, but dismissed it. He would never admit to anyone else that when he heard it, he felt a flicker of sickening dread and remembered the incident on the _Supremacy_. But when the world did not split open, he was able to still his racing heart. One heard many things on board the _Finalizer_. He did not hear any alarms or any screaming, just something… akin to static, perhaps, and a pair of impacts. Nobody called for help. No lights flashed. Hux’s own world had split apart minutes ago, when Kylo Ren reached through the Force and gave him something he never knew could exist.

His left leg was still slightly numb, and he had never gotten up to clean himself.

He did not know how much longer he dozed before his com went off.

“General Hux?”

He fumbled for the com on his bedside table, almost dropped it, caught it, and set his heart racing with alarm again. “What is it?” asked Hux, slurring more than he would have liked.

“It’s Kylo Ren, Sir.”

Of course it was Kylo Ren. “What’s he done?”

“We’re not sure what happened, but there was some kind of accident in his quarters and he’s been taken to medbay, Sir – nothing serious.” The physician sounded almost disappointed. “He’ll be alright. Just got knocked out for a minute. Couldn’t say how.”

The doctor continued, telling Hux about the blown-out lights and the gash in the wall opposite where Kylo had been found, shirtless, sweaty, and unconscious. By now, he had reached the point of shirtless, sweaty, and disoriented. By the time Hux got to medbay, he was in a bacta tank, damp, and disgruntled.

Long overdue, thought Hux. Even if he suffered no real injuries, he had been limping around for days. That wound in his side had to be treated. The Supreme Leader could not be seen limping when other options remained. The same went for Armitage taking a man to bed. Other options remained. Unfortunate, that they should involve something as off-putting as a bacta.

The medical staff had pulled a pair of briefs over his hips when they stripped him for the tank. The briefs served almost no practical function. Hux had trained his eye, through years of practice, not to look as a matter of principle, both at unclothed men and at the bodies of anyone he saw in a bacta tank.

Typically, if he saw such a sight he promptly excused himself. Bacta reviled him. The very word filled him with unease. It turned his stomach and made his skin crawl… as if it could rip apart, and he could burst while the disgusting slime touched him… like Brendol had…

But not only could he not afford to show weakness in a moment when Kylo had shown it, but Kylo opened his eyes when he saw Hux and the two men looked directly at each other. He was bound. Hux took his… _profound aversion_ and turned it into spite.

“ _Well_ ,” said Hux, with his hands tucked neatly behind his back – on second thought, looking at the almost-naked body, he recalled the vision Kylo gave him and folded his arms across his chest instead. His smirk never faltered. “There you are, Ren. What did you fall into while dodging your executive responsibilities? Hmm? I’d feel inclined to guess it was the trash compactor, if you weren’t still with us.”

He tutted. Damn him if anyone was going to discern the truth of the two of them a _second_ before Hux felt good and ready to disgrace himself. The doctor glanced back and forth between his Supreme Leader, floating and glowering in the tank mostly nude, and Hux, challenging him with his primness. He backed away slowly. He tried not to look like he was hiding behind his large datapad, but he failed. It shielded him up to the grey of his temples – but the shield would, in the event of an outbreak of conflict, not help him at all.

“You know there’s the whole of the First Order waiting for you to command it. As per usual, you shirk all responsibility onto me. What was he getting up to, Doctor…” Hux squinted at the name on the doctor’s report, which read _Nebarra_. “Nebarra? _Explosion_ … _unconscious_ … lightsaber! Why can’t I say I’m surprised?”

The lightsaber Doctor Nebarra pointed to lay beside Kylo’s personal weapon on a table next to the tank of bacta. The two hilts had little in common besides the fact of their nature as hilts. This new lightsaber was all angles and edges. Hux reached for it, to which Nebarra protested that it had probably been what destroyed the Supreme Leader’s quarters. Hux relented, and resigned himself to coolly surveying it instead. He thought he recognized it.

_You’re nervous_ , came Kylo’s voice in his head.

_I’m elated_ , Hux thought, unsure if Kylo could hear him. _You look ridiculous. You are ridiculous._

Kylo could hear him. _You’re not elated. You’re terrified._

“It belonged to Supreme Leader Snoke,” Hux said aloud. “Now, of course, it belongs to our _esteemed_ Supreme Leader Ren.”

_Just like everything else that belonged to him._

_Including me. You’re becoming predictable already._

_Tell him to leave._

_You tell him to leave._

_I’m not going to start breaking into everyone’s heads._

_Just mine?_

_Yep. Just yours._

“Leave us,” said Hux.

Doctor Nebarra appeared torn between two unpleasant prospects. Hux could see it written plainly on his aging, soft features. If he left Hux and Ren alone, he would come back to a dead General, a shattered bacta tank, and an incensed, unclothed Kylo Ren. If he voiced his concerns, he would be subject to both of their annoyance.

“Don’t t-touch anything in my medbay,” he said, his voice shaking as his finger did when he tried pointing it at Hux.

“Of _course_ not,” said Hux.

Nebarra’s nervous scuttling seemed all the more desperate contrasted with the mechanical open-and-shut of the door. Alone again with the son of darkness, Hux kept his eyes fixed on Kylo’s through the blue tint of the tank and the bacta.

_I can see you thinking about your father._

Hux’s smirk vanished before the door shut. He kept staring at Kylo’s face. But even a face reminded him of the last time he watched someone floating in a tank of bacta. Brendol’s face remained in his mind: bloated, pale to the point of translucence, the eyes rolling, the jaw working against the breathing mask that held it – to lament his agony? To call for his son? To tell him that he was murdered?

To apologize?

Hux set his teeth. Brendol would never have apologized for anything, let alone to his bastard son. He deserved to die. His death could not have been more appropriate! He dissolved! He burst into liquid! Not even able to squirm or cry! Helpless, watched by the son he…

He remembered the moment that it happened. The second his father was gone. The almost comical appearance of the mop of greying orange hair floating in the tank…

_Armitage._

He could see that happening to Kylo, just as he saw it happening to anyone he considered going anywhere near bacta. That body, so much greater than Brendol’s, worth so much more, the one that held him and touched him and kissed him… reduced to the same fate. Kylo would scream in his mind if it happened, scream for someone who was not his lover, could never love him, could not stop his demise…

_Armitage!_

He could see the face of the man he had shot on the _Eclipse_. He saw the hole through his chest. He saw the hole of his mouth gaping forever. Suddenly, the memories were smoothed over. They were not gone. It was as though Kylo had placed a dark shroud over them. He could not remember how any of it had looked if he tried.

_You have no right to call me a child,_ said Kylo’s voice in his head. It sounded gentle. _Do you want me to make it go away?_

_No._

_No?_

_No._

_I didn’t expect you to shoot him._

Hux folded his arms more tightly over his chest. He could not keep looking at Kylo, so he squeezed his eyes shut. “What were you waiting for, then?” he said out loud.

_I don’t know._

Hux had never known what he expected intimately taking another person’s life to feel like. The Hosnian system, the rivals he had dispatched by assassins, the father he watched burst like a bubble – those were all different. He had given commands. He had watched. Never before that incident had Armitage Hux, himself, held the tool of execution, used it, and watched someone else’s life leave them.

_I can make it go away. You won’t forget. You just won’t be able to remember._

_No_ , Hux thought again with greater conviction. _Give them back._

_I’ll put them back later._

_I won’t kiss you again until you do._

_You won’t even notice it happening. **I** won’t kiss **you** again until I do. You have my word._

Hux knew he still hated bacta, and that on principle he must not look at Kylo’s body. He pulled a chair to the tank, sat in it, and cautiously leaned his head against the smooth wall between them. It did not crack. Now, Hux did not have to look… but they were closer.

_They deserved it_ , Kylo told him.

“I know,” whispered Hux, watching his breath cloud on the tank.

_You weren’t meant for violence. I’m sorry._

“What the Hell do you have to be sorry for?” Hux snapped, still watching the fog of his words. “Tell me about how Snoke’s lightsaber blew up in your face.”

_I’d rather just show you._

_Wait –_

Kylo did not wait. Hux saw in a matter of seconds the Darksaber, the components snapping together, _Vader_ , the swell of anger within Vader’s heir, the explosion, and…

“The girl!” he cried, turning to glare up at Kylo. “ _Ren_!”

More images flooded his mind – of the bond Snoke forced between the two of them, how it functioned, of the moments leading to Snoke’s end… their hands, touching…

“Stop that!” he barked.

_I’m not any happier about it than you are. Calm down. I don’t want you upset._

“ _I am not upset!_ ” Hux almost screamed.

_It exploded because I was angry. She made me so angry…_

Hux immediately seized the angular grey hilt and pointed it at the body floating in front of him. Everything in him told him to put it down, not because he foresaw himself making a regrettable decision (his gesture was a bluff and he knew Kylo could see it), but because the weapon in his hand was antithetical to everything he knew about himself, believed in, and stood for. The cold feeling started in the hand that gripped it and shot up to his shoulder, then flowed across his chest.

“You make me angry,” he hissed.

Kylo said nothing for several seconds, only hung as a _presence_ in his mind. The presence wanted him to try to understand. Hux wanted to understand, too – but every step toward understanding filled him with pain. He gripped the hilt, as if the pain of the edges digging into the material of his gloves could overshadow the pain of his jealousy. When it did not, he dropped the Darksaber.

“Why do you even need this thing?”

_It is an artifact of tremendous power, which belongs to me by right since my defeat of Snoke. It was Vader’s. It is mine. With its power, I will –_

“But why do you _need_ it?”

Kylo did not have an answer. He stopped talking in Hux’s mind, because he knew that Hux knew why he had tried to master the weapon. He had not needed it. He would never _need_ it. He simply wanted it. Kylo craved the blade’s power. But more importantly, he wanted to display it as a symbol.

And Hux could see, lurking behind the childish reasons and yearning for validation, that Kylo knew power could be very attractive to a certain audience.

“I’m so flattered,” he said dryly. “What were you going to do? Come swaggering into my quarters, erect, exposed, and wielding the proof of your _right_ to master the stars? And your right to master me, of course, because I’m that important to you and I’m something to be mastered as well.”

He felt only a small, huddled kind of embarrassment from the hulk of a man in the bacta tank.

“I want you to know that I still hate you.”

_Go on. I’m listening._

“No,” said Hux. “I think perhaps I will not go on.”

_So cruel._

“Man up,” said Hux.

_I adore you._

“I… I _abhor_ you.”

Over the years, Hux had long grown accustomed to the teasing note that he often heard in Kylo Ren’s voice when they were trading quips outside of Snoke’s supervision. Never until now had it caused him to feel this warm. He returned to his chair and refused to look at Kylo, but could not keep Kylo out of his mind, and did not wish to. No words floated through it for a minute, and then:

_I made my list,_ said Kylo's voice. _You know, of everything we need to do._

_You don’t actually want to talk about that._

_No, I don’t._

Hux enjoyed another moment’s silence.

_Did you have fun?_ asked Kylo.

_Never. But be more specific._

_Mmn, you know what I’m talking about._

_Did you need to go **mmn** like that? Was that necessary?_

_Hmmm?_ came Kylo’s voice, languidly.

_Those aren’t thoughts! **Mmn** and **hmm** aren’t thoughts! You’re making your voice do that in my head!_

_Answer my question. Did you enjoy what I showed you?_

_You were there. You saw me._

_But I want you to say it._

Hux glanced up and behind him at Kylo’s face. His eyes were shut, but they were smiling. He turned up the collar of his coat when he hunched away from him again.

_Why are you trying to be… flirtatious, now of all times? What do you expect to happen?_

_It’s its own reward._

_Where are your lists?_

_In my quarters._

_Good. When can you leave medbay?_

_In the morning._

Morning. Hux’s heart sped up, shot over the edge a cliff, and dropped. He never made his speech! He had no idea what to say! He was late! He looked at his com. Two hours, he was late!

_We’ll make a speech tomorrow_ , Kylo suggested. _Together. After we’ve made a plan. Everything will be alright, Armitage._

Knowing that Kylo had his homework done did reassure Hux – but he would not admit it directly.

_I’ll want some reassurance from you too._

_About what?_ Hux wondered. He looked around medbay. The beds did not look comfortable, but he would be more comfortable here than in his quarters away from Kylo. Hux hated him.

_Nothing to do with the war. Or the First Order. Not directly._

_I don’t love you and I never will._

_No, not about that. You’re just so good at propaganda. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean, good at… “explaining things”._

_I reserve the right to leave._

_I want you to explain to me why I’m right. Why I’ve always been right. You can take as long as you need to figure it out. But that’s something I want._

Hux paused with his hand testing a bed for softness. The bed was insufficient, but Kylo’s explanation was not. He understood at once. He accepted both. They needed no more words.

When they returned to Hux’s quarters ready to make their plan, Kylo claimed in passing that he felt sore from the bowcaster wound and from the prior evening’s incident. He had never carried himself with grace. But he was not limping anymore.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is control?

“We must not pursue the Resistance.”

Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux looked at each other from opposite ends of the Grand Marshal’s ice-blue couch with as much space between them as they could manage. They had stacked couch cushions into a barrier. Over the barrier, their eyes met. Their eyes betrayed their internal struggles to one another.

Kylo wanted to find whatever festering hole the Resistance had hidden in and cauterize it with his lightsaber, obliterating everything inside of it. Despite what he said out loud, Hux wanted to drag the measly remains of anarchy out of their hole and publicly execute every last one of them.

Hux rephrased:

“We, as the First Order, cannot afford to expend our resources scouring the vast and ever-changing Galaxy for one ship full of ragged miscreants, in light of our recent losses, the amount of work there is to be done, and how insignificant the threat they actually pose.”

“Tch.” Kylo sucked his teeth and frowned. “I know that you’re right,” he said. “But I want you to be wrong.”

“If you want to throw a tantrum,” said Hux. “You may. But quietly.”

Kylo grabbed one of the couch cushions and hurled it into the far wall, where it bounced off nothing of importance or breakability. He gave a long, hearty huff, pulled the cushion back to him with the Force, and hurled it again. He did this three more times with rising vigor before admitting to himself how stupid he looked, and then resumed his position of respectable distance from his co-commander.

Hux thought about FN-2187 and his defiance. He thought about the fat-faced mechanic girl and her shrill screams. He thought about Poe Dameron and his jeers. He thought about the scavenger girl and how the man he did not love had looked at her. “I hate them too,” he said, as understated as he could manage, and shut his eyes as if to brace himself against temptation. “But… we mustn’t. It’s not just about us.”

“As long as _us_ is just about us…” Kylo began. Hux cut him off.

“ _Us_ isn’t even just about us,” he said, grimly.

“Some things are just about us,” said Kylo. “They have to be. Or I won’t be able to do this.”

“I accept this condition.”

Hux tapped the term into the datapad on his lap. On the table before his couch lay their breakfast, a large pitcher of water, a thermos of hot tea with his mug, and the three beautifully written pieces of paper from Kylo’s quarters kept neatly separate from the food.

 

KYLO:

                ~ Master the pain.

                ~ Master the duel. Prepare to face the girl and the light. Emerge victorious.

ARMITAGE:

                ~ Raise your army. Raise your armaments.

US:

                ~ Our bond is our strongest weapon.

                ~ Against it, our enemy stands no chance.

                ~ And we must tell our story.

 

He had transcribed everything the three lists said into the datapad to be expanded on and edited as necessary, but neither of them saw a reason to stop looking at Kylo’s calligraphy. It all looked so clear and simple, the way he had written it. Hux felt like a fool for worrying about the future. At least, the lists for what the two of them had to do _separately_ looked clear and simple. Kylo had to master his emotions and improve his hand-to-hand combat skills. Under Snoke, he had focused on his telepathic abilities at the expense of his skills with a lightsaber. This was necessary for his survival, but now Snoke was no longer a threat and the girl was. Meanwhile, Armitage (as he slipped up and thought of himself) had to build the military might of the First Order. It was what he knew how to do. Play to their strengths and cover their weaknesses. He should have thought of that instead of collapsing into a heap. Hux cursed himself.

But the third list gave him pause.

“Explain this third list to me,” he told Kylo.

“Our bond is our greatest weapon,” Kylo said simply. “It means what it says.”

Armitage – Hux! Hux. _Hux_ felt his stomach flutter. Ridiculous. The stomach could not flutter! “But please elaborate,” he said.

“You can’t kill hope,” said Kylo. “You can’t choke it, stamp it out, or burn it. We have to alleviate the need for it.”

“A charming notion, but one which has nothing to do with this bond you think we have.”

Kylo did not bother arguing the existence of their bond, but Hux felt a tinkling pulse of endearment that was not his own. He wished to swat it away before it could touch him. “We have to get people to like us, or another Resistance will take hold and fester. We have to make the Galaxy think that we are hope,” said Kylo.

Hux looked at him, incredulous. “But we _are_ hope! We’ve always been hope! The First Order is the only hope the Galaxy has!”

Kylo looked at Hux with some expression which Hux could not classify immediately. He thought that perhaps, Kylo was looking at him as one looks at a sweet but naïve child. He was looking at Kylo as one looks at an especially slow child. They were looking at each other like children. With a jerk, Hux realized that they were still children. Both of them. But in the next moment, that feeling was gone.

“You and I know that,” said Kylo.

Hux scowled. “Why are other people so _stupid_?”

“I have some ideas about how to improve our image,” Kylo offered.

“Propoganda? You? You… said _I_ was good at propaganda…”

“Policy changes.”

Hux did not like the sound of those two words together. “Ren,” he said in a warning tone.

But Kylo did not turn immediately to policy changes. He started off on a safer subject. “Tell me what the First Order means to you.”

Hux had to think it over. “Everything,” he muttered instinctually. The First Order was everything. It had been his entire life. Nothing good existed outside of it, and all value originated from it. He had sense enough to know that this was wrong, that this was what he had been taught to believe. He also had sense enough to know the uses of such a mindset. Without this all-encompassing, holy status of the First Order in the hearts and minds of its members, the First Order would never thrive. But Hux knew the truth – and for some reason, he felt his mind pushing back against the truth less than it had in his previous moments of weakness.

“The First Order,” Hux began. “Began as the rebirth of the Empire. But it has become something else.” He took a long drink of his tea, and let the thermos rest in his lap. Kylo did not speak. “The First Order has taken on a new form in accordance with the needs of the reality in which it exists. The First Order is not the Empire, as the Resistance sees it. The First Order does not live in the old Imperials. It lives in the young, who have the faculties to see it for what it is. The First Order is… a youth movement,” he said, realizing it as he spoke the words aloud and heard them with his own ears for the first time. “It is the united will and action of the youth of the Galaxy who demand a stable, unified, emboldened future for the systems they live in. We… we’re _old_ ,” he said, surprised at the revelation. He remembered the last war – barely, but he did remember it, and the First Order devotees he spoke of did not. “Kylo, we’re _old_.”

“I’m not thirty yet,” Kylo pointed out.

Hux narrowed his eyes. He thought he knew when Ben Solo had been born. “You’re _almost_ thirty.”

“But I’m not _yet_.”

“You have less than a week.”

“ _I’m not thirty yet_ ,” Kylo said, petulant.

Hux tried not to laugh – although he had no business laughing at Kylo over this. “The First Order is a united movement by the youth of the Galaxy seeking their future through cooperation and camaraderie with the like-minded.”

“And where do we fit into it?” asked Kylo.

“At the top,” said Hux, smiling. “Of course.”

Kylo smiled back at him, his smile as slight as all his smiles were. It was only the two of them. There was no need to lie. Kylo had seen the truth inside of his mind – Hux knew, had always known, that he was meant to rule, and now he ruled. He had to share the throne, but this seemed nearly inconsequential. Hux could not quite put his finger on it, but the thought of Kylo sitting next to him in the seat of power almost seemed to _validate_ Hux sitting in it. It corroborated his claim to power, and his seat corroborated Kylo’s claim to power. Hux did not have the words to state this outright in any way that would not rely on his feelings about it, his vague notions and sensations. If he were to say it out loud, he would need a way to vocalize it as a self-evident truth, so he said those five words and nothing else.

But he knew Kylo could see it inside of him.

“The Empire failed,” said Kylo. “I think I know what we need to do. You know how to get things done. How to implement ideas so they work in real life.”

Hux turned onto his side. His arms and legs were crossed. “For example?”

“We can’t tell the Galaxy that we’re its ruler,” said Kylo. “We have to tell the Galaxy we’re its friend. It’s like I was saying. We’re hope. We just have to tell them.”

Hux frowned. He understood Kylo’s reasoning, and he understood the fundamental problems with executing his ideas in reality. “Without conflict, any being, any species, any system will become weak and soft. Their love of their lives is the result of their struggle. Their sense of achievement. You can’t achieve peace, and you don’t want to. If they have peace, they can realize that they’re not content. If there is peace, there is no need for order. There is no need for _us_.”

Kylo nodded slowly. “But we have to build ourselves up, first. Our first enemy will be our own failures. Then, once we’ve built ourselves up,” he suggested. “We _could_ expand. We _could_ reach beyond this Galaxy, if we needed to give them something to do.”

“We could conquer,” said Hux, the soft smile of wonder he smiled in the shuttle when Kylo said that they should be prepared to consult each other returning to his face.

“Everyone has to eat,” said Kylo, moving on. “The New Republic left people to starve.”

“Everyone can eat,” agreed Hux. “But not everyone can feast. Everyone can survive.”

“Of course they can’t feast. We need our resources elsewhere,” Kylo said smoothly.

“Of course,” said Hux, barely suppressing a grin.

“But,” Kylo added. “You’ll still feast.”

“As will you.”

“Yes. But I said it because I refuse to allow you anything less.”

“It’ll have to be a secret.” Hux noticed Kylo looking at him with a puzzled expression. Why did it need to be a secret? “Maybe a few others can feast. Those who have earned the right. Anyone worth the privilege will join the active force of the First Order. They’ll know that’s where their opportunities lie. The best, the smartest, the strongest, the ones with genius and ability, they’ll rise through the ranks. They’ll rise to the top. One way or another. They’ll all have their talents. They’ll need us to give them a place to use them.”

“The ones like us,” Kylo suggested.

“Yes, the ones like us,” said Hux.

The ones like them, and like Phasma. The best. The strongest. Not the ones who had to toil and sweat to achieve self-improvement, but those who simply _were_. They would rise to the highest possible rungs. Below them would be the diligent fanatics, the ones who _did_ have to grind every hour of their life away in pursuit of improving themselves. Both groups would recite the same mantra – many are called to the ranks of the First Order. Few are chosen. Both groups would believe that they were the chosen. One would be significantly more right than the other. But both would be essential. The higher order would worship their own individualistic selves, while working for the First Order and also making it work for them. It would love them for everything they gave it, and they would love it for everything it gave them – like Hux. He had been “married” to the First Order, as Kylo phrased it. The lower order, the honorable, hardworking simpletons, would need their new pantheon, and would see it when they looked up to Kylo, Hux, and Phasma. The heart. The brain. The body. All three must thrive in the First Order, a living, active organism unto itself. Phasma had at a minimum as much value dead as she did alive. All three of them would, one day. There would be others once the Supreme Leader and the Grand Marshal were gone. Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux need not care about them, but must appear as though they did to outsiders. They must appear to care above all else about the garden that would grow from the seeds they sowed.

They did care about the future. They just cared for the present and themselves more.

Was it because Kylo placed himself above others that he would indulge himself in privilege? Did he truly not care? Or did he just care for Hux more? So much that he would spoil him while the people they were working to elevate from a pathetic death to a life of “strength”, “glory”, and “honor” scraped by on meager rations, alive and happy to be alive but never satisfied in the material sense? Both possibilities thrilled him. He wanted to kiss Kylo in that moment, but then Kylo opened his mouth again.

“The Humans First policy is a relic of the Empire and its failures,” Kylo said.

Hux felt the stars halt around them. The glowing sense of wonder and amazement went out like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on it. He gripped the datapad in one hand and the arm of his couch in the other. It was too large for his palm. The thermos of tea (which he had closed) clunked to the floor. Kylo casually picked it up and put it on his table. “ _No!_ ” he cried. “Kylo, what are you saying?!”

The shock and pain that these words from his mouth caused his Armitage did not surprise Kylo. “Search your feelings, Armitage.”

“Statistics,” Hux hissed. “Do not lie. Supreme Leader, please, I can cite studies upon studies which only support the long-held policy of the First Order to – ”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” said Kylo. “I do agree with you, but we shouldn't  _care_ if you’re right or if you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter. I’m just saying we have to get rid of it.”

“But _why_?!”

“For one thing,” said Kylo. “I’m going marry a man.”

This was news to Armitage Hux, but he did not allow himself to react as though it were. He did, however, swallow in a pronounced fashion. “But if we produce heirs – ”

“And neither of us will produce biological heirs. Our union will remain sacred.”

The implications of his statement sank into Hux as Hux sank into his un-cushioned third of the couch. No heirs. Supreme Leader Ren could not support a policy which he himself would openly and directly defy.

“No more Skywalkers.”

But for what? For… for him? For Armitage? The same question returned to his mind. Hux looked briefly at Ren, who was staring resolutely at the spot on the wall he had assaulted with his co-commander’s couch cushion. He swallowed again. His stomach threatened to fly out of his body. His throat throbbed with his heartbeat. He wanted to think of why Kylo was _sabotaging_ the _purity_ of the First Order – even though he knew the purity of the First Order was just as much a sham as the egalitarian austerity the two of them would pretend to live under with their subjects. He wanted to think about Brendol Hux’s lectures on this subject and recite his words, even though he fought every day to refute so many things Brendol had said to him. He wanted to think about educational holos from the Empire days and quote them, even though he knew the First Order was not the Empire. He told himself he should. But he could not make himself think of any of those things. All he could think about was being looked at by Kylo, being undressed by his eyes as Kylo held him before sealing their vows with a kiss, and letting the word  _husband_ fall from his lips with a tone of deference.

“I offer you my congratulations on your engagement, Supreme Leader,” said the Grand Marshal, stiffly. “When will you be wed?”

“Whenever you’re ready,” said the Supreme Leader in a voice barely above a whisper.

He could not defy the mandate of the Supreme Leader, of course. He had no right to protest or argue. He had his orders without hearing them.

“The strongest will rise through the ranks of the First Order,” explained Kylo. “The most able. The most worthy. They’ll prove themselves. And the Force can emerge anywhere. When those children are born, wherever they’re born, we need them on _our_ side. We’ll destroy the Resistance. You and me. Together. This war will end, but then the next war, the one we’ll fight for the rest of our lives, will be to keep a new Resistance from springing up. Hux. The best must be allowed to show themselves on merit alone.”

“I understand. But you don’t know what it’s like for me to have to understand.” Hux exhaled.

Kylo reached over the barrier of cushions and squeezed his hand. Hux had no time to let the feelings he had been told to feel for thirty-four years influence this decision. Kylo was correct, just as Hux had been correct about not chasing the Resistance.

“I suppose I knew,” Hux admitted.

Before he knew it, Kylo had changed the subject out of nowhere to take Hux’s mind away from what upset him. “Our bond is our greatest weapon, Armitage. You can help me center myself. Hone my passion into something more.”

He said it with no teasing in his voice. “You couldn’t be more serious,” Hux marveled.

Immediately, the teasing reared its impish head. “I wouldn’t be marrying you if I didn’t believe it.”

“I haven’t agreed to marry you.”

“I can force you.”

“You can,” Hux conceded. “But you won’t.”

“You’re right. I won’t. I won’t have to. You’re blushing.”

“No,” lied Hux.

“Armitage.”

“What.”

“When you accept me, you don’t resist that name. When you have your guard up, your mind pushes back against the word each time I say it. I can feel you doing that.”

“My name is General,” said Hux.

“I promoted you to Grand Marshal,” Kylo reminded him.

“I remember,” said Hux. “But my first name is General, I’ve decided. General Hux. That’s my full name.”

“Would you like a ceremonial promotion, Grand Marshal General ‘Armitage’ Hux?”

Hux considered. “Do you intend to have yourself coronated? It seems like you.”

“I hadn’t given any thought to a coronation. I’m not the _Emperor_. What if someone swore me in? Like you. My first official act can be to promote you. You’ll already have the uniform. Everyone will know it’s a formality. That’s what you were hinting at, right?”

Hux shrugged. “Consider it.” He stretched and drummed his fingers on the pile of couch cushions. This proved a mistake: Kylo bent and kissed the back of his hand. Hux pulled it away. “Not now.”

“Fine.”

“What do you mean about telling our story?” Hux tried to remember how they got off on their tangent about policy and coronations.

Kylo took a deep breath. In. Out. “People will like us better if they know we’re a couple.”

“We are not a couple,” said Hux. It had become a reflex.

“People will like us better,” Kylo repeated through a stiff jaw, although not clenched teeth. “If they know we’re a couple. That’s why we have to get married. It’ll help us if they know what we’ve had to go through to be together. If they know that we inspire each other to be our best selves.”

“No,” said Hux, flatly.

“Yes,” said Kylo.

“Absolutely not,” said Hux. “I refuse this ploy of yours.”

“It’s not a ploy,” said Kylo. “It’s just a lie. You lie all the time, it’ll be easy for you.”

Hux would not be deceived. “This is a ploy. I have told you openly that I dislike having my intelligence insulted.”

“It is not,” Kylo insisted. “I’ll know it’s a lie. I’m fine with it. Nobody will know but us.”

“We’re going to tell the Galaxy some sort of… star-crossed love story, then you’re going to marry me, while we command the First Order together and engage in diverse and frequent sexual activity.”

Kylo chuckled. “ _Sexschual_.”

“What?!” Hux barked.

“That’s how you say _sexual_. You say it the same way as you say _schsedual_.”

Hux knew exactly what Kylo had just said. He knew exactly what he was talking about. As his ears turned red, he saw the all too familiar twitching of the full lips. “I have no idea what you just said. This war meeting is over. Leave my quarters.”

 “Armitage. Please.”

Hux stood up in one punctuated motion, like the couch had shocked him, and held the datapad in front of him like a shield. “I’ve let you distract me again. Everything you’ve done is a ploy, right from the start. Right from the moment you strapped me into that chair.”

Kylo folded his arms over the pile of cushions and laid his head with his chin in the joint of his elbow. He looked up at Hux. “Do you want to know the truth? Even if you don’t believe me, I’ll tell you the truth. Right now. That’s all I can do.”

The first answer that came to mind was _no_. But why? Why no? The correct answer was yes. He would say yes, then he could decide whether to believe him or not. Why be afraid of the truth?

“Very well,” said Hux.

Kylo propped himself on his elbow and rested his chin in his palm. He stared at the seam in the upholstery between the ice-blue fabric, meant to be seen, and the rougher fabric, meant to hold the cushions. “Snoke introduced us. You loathed me. I still wanted you, but I tried not to. I gave up. I… got confused. I became the Supreme Leader. I knew I had to work with you or we would both die. I had to learn more about you. I went into your mind. I saw the truth about you. And… I wanted you again. It all came back.”

Hux knew, from the particular way his eyes darted about and never looked at him directly, and from the way the muscles of his face twitched, that Kylo had omitted enough a significant amount of information. But he could infer. Kylo glossed over anything he thought would upset Hux or prompt insistence that Hux’s emotions were meaningless or non-existent… for a second, Hux let himself think that it was childish of him to keep insisting. But panic gripped him in that second. Kylo looked up at him, meeting his eyes directly. Hux dismissed the thought.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“I can imagine the reality I want, claim to my subjects it’s true, use it to my advantage, and nobody can stop me. That includes the story of…” Kylo trailed off. Whatever he had been about to say, he deemed it imprudent.

“No. Don’t stop. Say it,” said Hux, fascinated, suddenly full of excitement over the wound Kylo was about to pull open in his very soul, although he could not fathom what might be lodged in the wound.

“…the story of a boy named Kylo, and a boy named Armitage, and how with their love they saved each other from… from every bad thing that had ever happened to either of them.”

Armitage almost bolted to Kylo to kiss him, but after his initial lurch he caught himself. They put up the barrier of couch cushions to prevent themselves from kissing. Who had they not trusted? Why should Armitage want to kiss him for saying that? He wanted to rip Kylo’s heart to shreds right in front of him, wanted to deny the fantasy he implored the universe to make real, wanted to crush his hopes and dreams – because he knew that Kylo would not be defeated by it. He knew that Kylo would not give up. Cruelty would only strengthen his resolve to love him. He wanted to beat him down, punish him for his vulnerability until… until what?

“You still want me to suffer,” said Kylo, having seen the swell of emotion. “It’s what you want most.”

“Later,” said Armitage. “After the speech.”

“We can do it again then?” asked Kylo.

“If you wish,” said Armitage.

“I’ll try to seduce you again,” warned Kylo.

“I know,” said Armitage. “That’s why I’ll to allow you to…” He couldn’t say what he thought. Too obscene.

“Pleasure you?” Kylo said for him. “But I don’t just want that. I’m trying to seduce you into my feelings.”

“We have to break you of that,” said Armitage, tossing his head back. A sheet of ginger hair fell across his forehead. He had not put his hair back between his attack of anxiety, Kylo’s gift of a vision, Kylo’s visit to the medbay, and now this war meeting on his couch. “I’m going to make it into a game for you to lose.”

“Yes, Sir,” said Kylo, as plainly as he could. Armitage frowned. He found he would have preferred for Kylo to protest. Fight back. Implore him that his feelings and his heartbreak were too sacred to be the subject of play. But with the matter settled and the initial terms set, Armitage had a promised reward in sight for Kylo if he stuck to the business of their war meeting and the speech – and one for himself, although he told himself he could stick to business without the promise of delayed gratification.

They transported Hux’s recording setup from his desk to his couch. Almost every day cycle at about 1500, Hux sat in front of a First Order banner and churned out one of his characteristically impassioned speeches. Kylo kept insisting that “Armitage” let him do most of the work – and as Kylo said he did, Hux felt his mind pushing back against his first name. Each time he heard it, he felt a flash of annoyance and the sense that the name was not his, was not correct.

Kylo tried to set the devices up for him, but the cords confused him. Hux plugged them into the correct sockets. Kylo moved the table to support his recording devices, one for sound and one for visuals.

After a few tests, they had a setup that satisfied Hux. It showed them from the chests up, seated next to each other on what was not immediately apparent as a couch. Kylo had sat in the middle of the couch, hunched with his legs spread and his elbows resting on his knees, and Hux on the right side, with his right knee crossed over his left.

“How do you want to start?” asked Kylo.

Hux looked at the red lights that indicated recording and pressed his lips together as he thought. He could always cut this part out, but he prided himself on making his recordings in one continuous cut. It made him look decisive. Confident. Armitage Hux never needed to make cuts, because he believed in what he said and did not make mistakes. A man who believed in the First Order as he did and achieved the success he had in it could not make mistakes, and that would make others want to aspire to him.

“This is General Hux of the First Order,” he began, as he always did. “I apologize for the delay of this broadcast. Supreme Leader Snoke is no more.” This was all the notice he would ever pay Snoke in public again, if he had his way. “Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and I have deemed it most productive to address you together.”

Kylo had caught on. “The change in regime means real and permanent change for the First Order. It is not merely a transfer of a title. I have the full support of High Command behind me, and I will cast aside the outdated Imperial policies which have held us back from reaching our goals of bringing order and peace to the Galaxy.”

He paused, so Hux picked up. Doing this with two people was more difficult, because they could only rely on non-verbal cues and non-visual cues. “The Humans First policy, a relic from the days of royalist barbarism… is no more. If you value peace, if you value the rule of law, if you love your life, wish to live it for the greatest purpose you can, and seek to reach your highest potential… then… join us. Join the First Order. In a matter of weeks, we will have secured the last few holdout systems, and will unite the Galaxy under our banner. The reign of Supreme Leader Ren holds true and lasting change that will uplift us all.”

Hux swallowed thickly. This was not a speech in the vein of his other speeches. It was Kylo’s turn now.

“I realize that things… happened fast,” said Kylo. Hux saw him shift out of the corner of his eye. “I realize that most of the Galaxy doesn’t know much of me, or that what they do know scares them or makes them doubt my dedication to the First Order… I’ve shown you my face today as a gesture of goodwill. If you can’t believe in me yet, please, believe in General Hux, because he and I believe in each other.” Dangerously close to outing them, thought Hux. “Although we had our disagreements in the past, we’re allies now. We’re… allies now. And both of us are ready to… to lead. To lead the First Order. To support it. To make the ideal that all of us share a reality.”

Hux rescued him. “In the coming cycles, we will elaborate. Our joint addresses will replace my daily ones…”

He saw Kylo move again. Kylo sat up straight and inhaled sharply. Hux dared to glance at him. In the half-second he had to observe Kylo, he saw that his eyes were looking over the recorder, not at it.

The girl. It had to be the girl he was looking at. Hux could not see her, of course. He had only the split-second of the pause in his speaking to process what was happening to Kylo and react, because Kylo did not pick up the speech for him. The camera would not pick up anything below chest level. Without changing his expression or moving too noticeably, Hux reached over and squeezed Kylo’s hand. He felt Kylo squeeze back as he started to speak again.

“…for the forseeable future, unless specified otherwise,” Hux finished.

He had something else to say, but Kylo cut in: “If you have any information that leads the First Order to the capture of the Resistance, speak up. Do the right thing. Do it for the sake of order. If you come forward and help us apprehend the Resistance, the First Order will reward you, and you will have the gratitude of both myself and A – of General Hux. You will receive fifty thousand credits and guaranteed employment and housing for yourself and your family.”

“And,” said Hux. “Your name will live forever as that of the hero who put the final punctuation mark on the last installment of this accursed war.”

For three seconds, neither could think of anything else to say. They were still holding hands.

“…thank you,” said Hux, waited a few more seconds, and cut the recording. “Is she still here? Can she see me?”

Kylo slumped back into the couch, rubbing his thumb over Hux’s palm. “Is who still here?”

“The girl,” said Hux. “I saw you look up. You were surprised. I know you saw her. I’m not angry. You’ve made it clear that the unwanted bond is… distressing to you. I could see it on your face.”

“But I didn’t see the girl.”

 _Deceived_. Hux tried to pull his hand away. Kylo clutched it and grabbed his wrist with his other hand. “How _dare_ you,” said Hux.

“I just had an idea,” said Kylo. “I didn’t mean to trick you. I had an idea.”

“You had an idea? What _idea_?”

Kylo looked at their clasped hands, then up the length of Hux’s sleeve and let his eyes linger on his collar. “Can it wait? You said after the speech, we could do it again. Remember?”

Hux wished his chest wouldn’t rise and fall so when he took deep breaths. Containing himself when Kylo’s voice sounded like that was hard enough without his body betraying his desire to attract more of Kylo’s attention. “I did. I also said I’d allow you to pleasure me.”

“May I kiss your hand?”

“You may.”

Kylo raised their joined hands to his lips, kissed the back of Hux’s, and let their hands fall. Nothing else happened. They both looked about the room, and sometimes at each other. It had been so easy on the _Eclipse_. It would have been so easy if Hux let himself be swept up by rapture while they had distracted themselves from business a few minutes ago. It was nearly impossible now.

“Armitage.”

Both of them felt Hux’s mind pushing against his given name. They shared a glance to affirm that they both felt it.

“We agreed that you would use that name when _you_ were in charge,” said Hux.

“Do you want to be in charge this time?” asked Kylo.

Hux considered both possibilities. “Yes. I do.”

“Okay.” said Kylo, and swallowed. “Sir.”

Still, neither of them moved for several minutes. Hux wished that Kylo had not asked if he wanted to be in charge, but had seized command himself and kissed Hux again. They had not kissed since that swell of desire they felt on the _Eclipse_. Hux felt the same desire to do _something_ , but it did not move him in any direction. It hovered and vibrated within him. He wondered if Kylo felt the same tension.

“We’re going to have to discuss it, aren’t we,” said Hux, dismayed. It was not a question.

“Don’t you usually?” asked Kylo.

“Not with _you_ ,” said Hux.

“Am I allowed to make requests?”

“Yes, Kylo. That’s how it works. You’re…” Right before Hux said the words, he knew what a terrible idea it was to say these words to Kylo Ren. He knew just how much power it handed over, right before it left his fingertips. “…you’re _really_ the one in charge.”

“Yes. I am.”

“So I will ask you…”

Kylo cut Hux off. “What would you have done if you’d let yourself lose control when I tried to tell you that story? Ow.”

For Hux had given a sharp jerk to what he could grab of his hair, releasing the tentatively affectionate clutch of his fingers locked with Kylo’s. “You interrupted me.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“You don’t sound sorry.”

“Yeah, that’s because I’m not sorry.”

Kylo looked at Hux. He dared him. The longer he stared at Hux’s tight-lipped expression of disappointment (but not surprise), the more the corners of his mouth twitched. He kept batting his eyelashes at Hux, as if he expected Hux to fall into the trap of retaliation – and Hux nearly did. He wanted to tear Kylo’s throat out with his teeth. He failed to notice that Kylo was closing the distance between them until he could hear him breathing.

“Don’t you dare kiss me.”

Kylo’s barely let his voice be heard. “Yes, Sir. You’re already going to punish me enough.”

“I am,” said Hux, refusing to use anything resembling Kylo’s bedroom voice. “I’m considering my options. You’re so inexperienced. I don’t want to violate your tender-hearted sensibilities too much. Not yet. But I want you to suffer.”

“Do you want to know a secret?”

Hux sneered, but his eyes never left Kylo’s. To break eye contact would be to show weakness. Whoever looked away would lose. “ _Do_ I?”

“Paperwork doesn’t scare me.”

Paperwork? Oh, right. A physical contract. “Noted.”

“But,” Kylo added. “No one can suffer like me.”

Hux did not miss the tone of self-deprecation. He knew that Kylo did not only refer to punishment under Hux’s boots, but his languishing under Hux’s looks of disgust. Kylo wasn’t only Hux’s new boy, he was the best boy he would ever wrap his hands around and squeeze his heart out of bloody through his mouth. Kylo was the best because he could bring him so close to the brink of disaster. Not the disaster of becoming a conquest of his lust, but because Kylo could almost make Hux believe the lies Kylo told himself…

“Kylo,” he said, trying to break the spell over both of them that Kylo cast with one confession.

“It’s real,” whispered Kylo. “This is still real. This isn’t a game to me. Please don’t ever look away. Please look only at me, forever…”

Kylo’s voice was so pretty, so pleading, that Hux did keep looking at him, with unbridled amazement. “You’re _pathetic_.”

“Mistreat me. Break my heart. Tell me I’m nothing. Please.”

Hux brushed a lock of hair away from Kylo’s face, which was becoming damp with tears. “Why?”

“It’s what you want right now,” said Kylo. “You always want to tell me that. As you should.”

“What about you?” Hux kept stroking his cheek after the lock of hair had been tucked back. Petting him. “Do you want it?”

“I _need_ it,” said Kylo.

It shook him. Even consumed by the still, near-silent intensity of his own sadism of the spirit, he paused. Why would Kylo say he needed that? Because he knew his Master wanted nothing more? Would he do that? Would he replace his needs with another’s wants? No. Kylo had not evolved that far. He likely never would. This was still something that Kylo needed himself.

His pale eyes narrowed. He remembered what he saw in Kylo’s memory the evening before, and what Kylo had said to him about the experiences they portrayed after their first kiss. He remembered their rivalry of five years: himself, loathing Ren and yet considering Ren beneath him. Lavishing him with attention while viewing him as a beast. Remaining unimpressed with him, yet gloating over his failures at every chance. The contradiction belied the General’s deeper conflict, and they both knew it now. He considered if he should do the opposite of what Kylo begged for and sooth him when he asked for pain, but he knew that Kylo was telling the truth. He needed this, and he needed someone to make sure he emerged from the other side of them making him feel like he was nothing.

He had thought at first that Kylo might be slightly different from the others. He had been wrong. Kylo was nothing like the others. Kylo’s soul was the type that as a rule he refused to look twice at. Those who possessed it were never worth his time. They disgusted him, and he had nothing to offer them. Except for Kylo. He did not yet know why.

“ _Armitage_ …”

Kylo whispered the name. Neither of them felt the mind that heard it push back. He was open to Kylo. But Kylo was open to him, too.

“Strip to the waist,” ordered Armitage. “Kneel here.” He pointed to the floor in front of his seat on the couch. “Wait for me to return. Can you do that?”

Something changed on Kylo’s face. He had expected immediate degrading. He received the promise of more. “I can, Sir.” Then he added, “Thank you, Sir.” He tore his gaze away from Hux’s first and cast in downward – a surrender.

Armitage almost never entertained in his own quarters. As he moved to pull a trunk from under his bed, he found himself regretting that he had ever brought any of them into this room before Kylo. For some reason, he would have liked to tell him that he had the exclusive honor. It would have brought Kylo lower than any of them, and yet above all of them.

He looked over a blindfold. No. He wanted Kylo to look at him, to see the pitiless face above him. He wanted to see Kylo’s eyes filled with agony. He looked at a bundle of gags. Again, no. He had too many plans for Kylo’s mouth. A heavy pair of binders, and… and the wand, he decided. That was all he would need. Kylo had seemed to invite punishment through his flippancy, but would not react well to it right now, his gut told him. If he had been anyone else, Hux would not have bothered to read enough of his cues to know that he ought to care. But he wasn’t anyone else, and Hux did care.

Armitage slid the trunk back under his bed with the binders in one hand and the wand in the other. Kylo had knelt with his face cast down. His hair fell on either side of his head. His palms were pressed to the upturned planes of his thighs. No attempt to hide himself. No defensive tensing of his muscles.

“Good boy.”

No change as Armitage approached him, either. He did not look up to see what Hux had placed in the middle of the couch, next to where he would soon take his place. When Hux murmured to put his hands behind his back and that “they’re just binders” Kylo only nodded once and complied.

Armitage spent a long moment of silence looking down at him once he had the boy between his spread knees and they looked at each other again. He no longer wanted to gloat. There was no reason to gloat. Kylo had not failed himself or anyone else by kneeling.

“I’m not going to hit you this time,” said Armitage.

Kylo nodded.

“You may speak when spoken to,” said Armitage, to which Kylo also nodded. “ _Can_ you speak?”

“Yes, Sir,” said Kylo, but his voice was hoarse and shaking. This loaded silence filled with potential energy, and the promise of what he needed to hear, affected him this much. Armitage made a mental note of it.

He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his face almost touching Kylo’s. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said. “It’s the kiss I wanted to give you when you told me about that childish love story you want to tell everyone. Do you think they’re going to believe you, Kylo?”

Kylo furrowed his brow and searched for the right answer. There was no right answer. “I… I have no idea, Sir.”

And how could he, thought Armitage. “Do you believe it?”

“I…” The tears threatened to come back.

“Don’t look away from me, Kylo. Or do you just need _me_ to look at _you_ forever? Selfish, whining brat…”

“I’m sorry, Sir…” Kylo forced himself to look up.

Armitage chuckled. “Hm. You do sound sorry this time.”

“I am…” The first tear fell. Armitage wiped it with his thumb, then raised the thumb to his own tongue. The taste of the salt was like an opening door. “I don’t want to disappoint you. I want you to…”

“To what?” Kylo could not force out his answer. His breaths had become short and jerking. He had to snatch each one out of the air without knowing where the next one would come from. “Do you believe the story you’ll tell everyone, Kylo?”

Kylo yelped out his answer like he had been kicked. “Yes!”

“Yes _what_?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Yes Sir _what_?”

“Yes, Sir, I believe the story I’m going to tell about us!”

Armitage laughed. “Tell me again, what you told me before. Maybe I’ll believe it this time.”

Kylo squeezed his eyes shut. “That we… th-that we…” He couldn’t do it. Kylo shuddered. He made a noise like a sob, and like a grunt of pain. Armitage remembered the story well. He did not need to hear it again.

“Kylo,” Armitage said as sweetly as he could (which was hardly at all). “Look at me. Open your eyes. Look me in the eye.”

Kylo met his eyes and folded his lips into his mouth. He knew the full extent of what Armitage was going to say, whether because he saw it in his mind or because it was so obvious.

“Kylo. You are _nothing_. Do you understand me? You’re nothing, and I will never love you.”

Armitage smiled. The words broke over Kylo in a cold wave. He seemed to go slack. He made only one small whimper. The body in front of Armitage wavered on the spot. The remaining tension and the pitiful, hopeless yearning for reciprocation left it.

Armitage gave Kylo the kiss that he had wanted to give him. He tasted more of Kylo’s tears. He felt him shiver and heard him choke, for the kiss sent him into a fit of quiet sobs as Armitage expected his rejection to. He held him by his hair, and the binders held him by his wrists.

There were no more words between them after Armitage broke the kiss. Kylo raised himself on his knees to let Armitage release him from his trousers. Armitage had not looked during their encounter in the interrogation room. He wondered if Kylo had been hard then. Armitage had not been hard in any substantial measure. There had been too much at stake. Now, Kylo was fully erect – and _massive_. If Armitage had opened his mouth to jeer at him for his arousal, the jeering would have died when he saw the thing.

It would also have been hypocritical. Armitage strained at his pants. When Kylo saw him bared and dripping in front of him, felt Armitage’s hand on his shoulder, he knew what to do. His mouth fell open and slipped around Armitage easily. Did Kylo practice? Did he kneel in front of a wall and imagine that someone was paying attention to him? That was the only explanation. The plush lips were pulled back and forth as they slipped up and down. A thick, wet tongue lapped against him. Armitage kneaded his fingers against Kylo’s shoulder, where his boot had dug into it, and through his hair. The brown eyes, the windows to Kylo’s agony, stared up at him, never looking away. They sent tears to soak the reddened skin around his eyes and to streak down his face, like scars upon scars upon scars.

Was this what it was like? Had it been like this the whole time? Could Armitage have always had this? He took the back of Kylo’s head firmly and pushed with each dip.

“Faster, boy…”

The tears came as fast as his pleasure, mixing on Kylo’s lips with his spit and Armitage’s pre-cum. Armitage knew he couldn’t take more. He stood, pulling himself out of Kylo’s mouth. Kylo closed his eyes and held his abused mouth open. He knew what to expect.

“I told you to _look at me_!”

When Armitage came, grunting and gasping without words, he came on Kylo’s chest and wiped himself on Kylo’s outstretched tongue. The choice was not conscious, nor was the choice to kiss him when he fell back to the couch, nor was the choice to keep kissing him while he rubbed his seed into Kylo’s skin. When he returned to himself, he had Kylo’s head on his knee while the boy looked up at him with and expression blank but blissful while Armitage played with one of his nipples.

Some time later, with a ringing in his ears, he dragged Kylo to his bed by his hair. He knew Kylo grunted a lifeless “Yes, Sir” to everything he said.

“Worthless…” Armitage heard himself say. “Pathetic slut… your only value is your use to _me_ , Kylo, do you understand that? _Me_. You’re nothing without _me_.”

“Nothing without you, Sir!”

Kylo lay naked on his bed with the binders still holding his wrists behind his back. The sheen of cum shone on his chest distinct from the sheen of sweat and tears. His hair, which had been freshly washed, hung damp and limp.

Armitage wanted to hit him. Slap the stupid whore in the face. Punch the uselessly huge, bestial _thing_ bobbing and dripping cream between his legs. But he remembered that he had said he would not. The way that Kylo looked at him said that Kylo saw the way Armitage looked at Kylo, and that it hurt him almost as much as violence would.

Instead, Armitage wrapped his hand around Kylo and squeezed. It barely fit. Kylo cried out. “Who’s is this?”

“It’s yours, Sir!”

“It’s nothing too. It’s as worthless as you are.”

“Yes, Sir, I understand! My cock is nothing! Ahh…!”

Kylo’s words slurred into each other. Pre-cum dripped onto Armitage’s slim fingers. He hated having even his own seed touch his hand. He thought of this vaguely as he released the pressure slowly, then squeezed again.

“Have you thought about putting this inside me, Kylo? How dare you. You think I’d get on my knees for you?”

“No, Sir, I don’t…!”

“Your holes are for me to use for my release. Do you understand?”

“I’m your slut, Sir… I’m a little slut for you…”

“And this… well.” Armitage released him and rolled the wand between his fingers. “That’s also for me to use. You know I like seeing you suffer. Nobody can suffer like you. I brought this out for you, Kylo.”

“Thank you, Sir…”

He was losing him. Kylo’s head lolled to the side and his eyes rolled to look up at the ceiling.  “Look at me. Focus on me.”

“S-so pretty…”

Kylo could not drift away with the wand buzzing against him. Armitage teased him with it. Bring him to the edge of release, pull back… taunt him… watch him cry and say “Thank you, Sir”… run the tip of the wand over the underside of his dick, nudge it against the base… shush him, sooth him… hear him beg… pull it away… again… finally, he watched Kylo break down until the denials were met with unmasked anger and the teasing was met with resigned humiliation.

“Silly little boy…” Armitage whispered. The wand hummed against Kylo’s inner thigh. “You thought you could ever be my equal… you’re beneath me, Kylo. You’re so far beneath me.”

Kylo did not respond, but only fought back a groan.

“Say it,” Armitage prompted gently.

“I’m n-nothing…”

“That’s right. But I’ll _never_ send you away.” Armitage moved the wand to his lower abdomen. “I’ll _never_ leave you, Kylo, and I’ll _never_ tell you to leave me. I enjoy your pain too much. I want to keep hurting you forever. And it doesn’t matter if that’s what you want or not. You don’t get to have choices. You belong to _me_.” He pressed the wand to Kylo’s erection until the tip pressed against his stomach. “Forever, Kylo. I’ll keep you with me to torment you, tearing you apart – ”

Kylo sobbed Armitage’s name, drawing the last syllable out until his voice went ragged. Armitage’s heart pounded. He came for what felt like so much longer than Armitage had. It left him looking helplessly up at Armitage, and pulling away from the wand in pain before Armitage turned it off. He listened to Kylo crying. He wondered if Kylo could hear his heartbeat.

“Good boy, Kylo” he said. “Good boy. I didn’t expect you to…”

Armitage’s sentence died halfway through. Didn’t expect him to take it so well. Didn’t expect him to restrict himself from using the Force. Didn’t expect him to make crying look so attractive. Armitage got him a warm, damp towel and took off the binders. The act of climbing into bed next to Kylo and holding him was not something that his mind labeled “aftercare”. It was only what Armitage wished to do.

“I’m okay,” Kylo said, before Armitage dared to ask.  “That was better than what I would have asked for… thank you…”

A few straggling tears wet the black material of Armitage’s shirt. Kylo slowed his breathing to something deep and deliberate.

“You’re not nothing,” said Armitage.

“Oh, I know,” said Kylo. “It was just a game. We’re the two most important people in the Galaxy.”

Armitage had not expected to hear the last part. He kissed the top of Kylo’s head and curled up at his side. He felt Kylo smile against his shirt, and felt an arm encircle him. “Yes. We are.”

“I also know that… that you really…” But Kylo stopped.

“You also know what?” asked Armitage. “What was that last part? I didn’t hear you.”

“I… I know how we trap the Resistance.”

“Hell of a time to bring that up,” Armitage scoffed.

“It’s the idea I had while we were making our speech,” said Kylo. “You know, when you thought I saw the girl and you held my hand because you wanted to support me emotionally, as I’ll expect you to when you’re my husband, which you’re going to be soon.” Armitage scowled. “That’s when I knew how we lure out the Resistance.”

“It’s time for you to rest,” said Armitage. “And more importantly, to shut up.”

“No,” said Kylo. “I think talking helps me afterward. I know being close to you like this does. Hold my hand and talk to me.”

Armitage pursed his lips, but he had to comply with the requests. The hand that had barely fit around Kylo held a hand that could _easily_ fit around Armitage. He shuddered at the thought of Kylo touching him that way. Not now. He mustn’t think of that now. “How do we lure out the Resistance?”

“I know you want to build another Starkiller,” Kylo began. “And if we built another Starkiller, the Resistance would have to come and try to destroy it. They would have to. They couldn’t allow it to exist, knowing that we’re willing to use it. But we’ve taken too great of a loss. We can’t build another one.”

He did _not_ say that he considered such weapons ineffective and inefficient – but Armitage knew his opinions. He had made himself clear in the past. But he did not mention it now.

“I know,” Armitage sighed. He did not have the energy to pick a fight about whether or not Starkiller Base was a good idea. “Perhaps, someday…”

“But I have a better idea,” said Kylo.

“ _Better_ than Starkiller? Tell me,” said Armitage.

And so Kylo told him.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is luxury?

_I will never wear anything like this again._

Armitage Hux looked at himself in the mirror. He had yet to decide if he thought that he would never wear anything like the clothes hugging and veiling his slim, long frame again with disgust, or with dismay. The first element of the ensemble to draw a casual eye, he thought, would be the cape. It was made of soft black suede and swished with every movement he made, because it fell to where the waistband of his trousers began. A matted black metal clasp studded with milky-white stones held it closed across his collarbones. The same metal and stones held the four clasps of his trousers shut. The trousers were made of the same black suede as the cape, and fit him snug. The matched set obscured his upper half, affording him some modesty, and emphasized his lower half, hugging his hips, thighs, and rear. Kylo Ren chose them, and Armitage knew for what purpose.

He welcomed the modesty afforded him by the cape. He needed it or he might implode. The shirt (also chosen by Kylo, _of course_ ), was made of the softest, sheerest material Armitage had ever seen. He had gasped when it touched his skin for the first time. It had been earlier that cycle. He pulled one of the sleeves up his arm and gasped out loud. Kylo looked at him, knowing that the gasp was a tiny triumph for him.

It was from that look that Armitage knew Kylo would claim many more triumphs soon.

Armitage had never realized clothing could feel like that, or indeed that such a fabric could be sewn with needles and thread, but he could see the stitches holding together its hems and seams. It had no adornment except for tiny crystal buttons catching the artificial lights in his quarters. He had thought it a woman’s blouse at first sight, what with the twinkling buttons and the gauzy fabric and the cuffs that covered his hands down to his manicured fingernails, but in its lines and cut it was unmistakably a man’s shirt. He wore nothing under it. It had no shoulder pads. This, Kylo assured him, in addition to wearing his hair down and rumpled softly, would ensure that nobody recognized him.

Armitage would believe it when it came to pass, but he was willing to let the Supreme Leader learn from his own mistakes in this situation. Kylo would never take his Grand Marshal’s word on this matter, right? Therefore, Armitage had no choice but to let Kylo parade him around a ballroom in Canto Bight, right? He would endure this and other indignities for the sake of the First Order.

The boots covered his trousers up to the knee. Shining black, with starkly white soles. These were the boots of the Galaxy’s elite. Those soles could never know dirt. They never would. Armitage might cry. _No_ , he thought, _I will never wear anything like this again, will I. I will never look this beautiful again. I must remember this forever. But I must tell no-one._

But from the way Kylo looked at him, Kylo knew his thoughts. “I want you to keep those boots when we’re done,” he instructed.

“What for? They’re the wrong shade of white. They won’t match the Grand Marshal uniform.”

“Supreme Leader’s orders.”

Armitage sighed louder than necessary. “Yes, my Lord.”

“And you _will_ look this beautiful again,” said Kylo. “You’ll see.”

“I’m not dressing up for you after this,” said Armitage. “This disguise is necessary – or so says the Supreme Leader – for our mission. It’s a sacrifice required of me, and I will not shrink from it.”

“I won’t ask you to dress up for me unless you want to.”

Armitage flushed and turned back to the mirror. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said with a little sniff. “Perhaps nobody would recognize me.”

“If they do, it will only be because you make everything look like a uniform.”

Kylo Ren had sat waiting on Armitage’s bed – _their_ bed, by now, if he was honest with himself – watching Armitage watch himself in the mirror, and watching his lips move as he made the vow to his reflection to etch it forever into his memory. Ren had covered his suit with a coat of heavy black velvet, crowned by a wide collar of heavy black fur. The lines of the black suit and white shirt (fully opaque) were almost unnerving in their decisiveness, but like Armitage’s shirt it was free of ornamentation. The only ornament on the coat was a single large brooch which held it closed over Kylo’s heart, stamped with the emblem of the First Order. Chrome. He had braided his forelocks away from his face, out of their characteristic unruliness.

“This can’t possibly look like a uniform,” said Armitage, not looking away from the mirror.

Kylo appeared behind his reflection. “It’s a whore’s uniform.”

He felt a shiver of excitement at Kylo’s words. Although there had been hints toward the ruination that called to Armitage, their… _dynamic_ had changed through Kylo’s birthday and up until this night of their appointment. Since the last intense encounter, where Kylo begged Armitage to tell him he was nothing, they had not come close to such a level of risk and removal from reality. It did not _slow down_. They continued to learn about each other. They continued to sleep in the same bed. But Kylo had changed modes. Secretly, Armitage was thankful to him for easing his pursuit, but he could not tell him so or risk the appearance of weakness.

He knew that Kylo was waiting for the right time – although what “the right time” meant to Kylo, Armitage could not know. It could mean the right moment of atmosphere and emotional fervor. It could mean the right moment of Armitage’s weakness and susceptibility to self-debasement – he could be waiting to push Armitage further than he wanted to go, for he had told Kylo what he would and would not do and one could never be too sure with Kylo Ren, could they? He still had reason to suspect him, didn’t he? Yes, yes, Armitage would have to wait, and remain wary. He could not afford to get comfortable with the Supreme Leader.

…deep down, he knew that Kylo was waiting for a moment of high romance. Looking at their reflections together, as he had before Phasma’s funeral and known that he was already slipping toward his fate, Armitage suspected Kylo would strike during the next cycle.

He leaned his head back, tipping it onto the luxurious fur collar. Armitage noticed that they still looked intimidating together, even dressed up to go to a place neither of them belonged and they posed as though on the brink of a lover’s embrace. Kylo’s black-gloved hand moved with confidence over the taut layer of soft material over Armitage’s thigh, up the row of clasps, until his palm came to hold Armitage’s abdomen.

The thought of a moment of high romance frightened him. Two weeks ago, he could not have admitted that to himself.

“I won’t let you tempt me,” he told Kylo. “We have business to attend to.”

“Mm,” grunted Kylo. “I chose too well for you. If I can’t pay attention to our mission, at least I succeeded in one respect. Nobody will recognize you, looking like this.”

“Good,” said Armitage, feeling a hitch when the pads of Kylo’s fingers moved against him.

“When I thought you were too pretty to be a General, this is what I meant.”

“Kylo, not now, we can’t…”

“Are you worried about our objective? Or about your reputation? What’s the reason you’re afraid to leave your quarters?”

They always ended up like this, purring to each other with faces inches apart. Armitage could not tell if he had been wrong about his inability to reciprocate Kylo’s infatuation, but he believed he was merely conflating feelings with the alarming physical chemistry between the two of them. Never once in all of five years had they touched one another, but now they had and the floodgates banged open.

“My only concern is for the good of the First Order,” Armitage recited.

Kylo laughed. “I know that you’re concerned about your reputation, and I also know that you don’t have a reason to be. You’ll see why.”

He left his quarters already starting to adopt the persona he would need for the duration of their visit to Canto Bight. If nobody would ever recognize him as Hux of the First Order, then he need not fear the act. If he performed the act well enough, nobody would ever recognize him. The thought of the coastal city of splendor gave him no concern. But the _Finalizer_ was full of people who would recognize him because they saw him constantly. They had grown used to seeing him with Kylo Ren, who offered his right arm as they began their trip to Kylo’s command shuttle (no need for an unassuming craft this time). Armitage looked at the offer, but could not bear the idea of taking it yet. With the first step out of his quarters he became terrified of anyone seeing him dressed this way or holding Kylo’s arm. Allowing Kylo to escort him would have been such a tame gesture, so innocuous compared to everything else they had done to each other, and yet simply touching Kylo’s forearm in a specific way would blow back the cover Armitage could not define a reason for wanting to hold onto.

A female commissioned officer rounded a corner and came face to face with them. Her eyes and mouth widened almost into circles. Next was a pair of Stormtroopers who stopped in their path. Armitage heard one of them mutter something that sounded like… admiration? Appreciation? They encountered more and more of the crew, and although every reaction was stunned, none of them were negative. His nerves began to subside. Nobody was laughing at him. Nobody was taunting him. Nobody thought that Armitage looked weak or silly in this disguise. They may not have realized that he was meant to be disguised, or as what.

Until they saw Edrison Peavey.

The coterie of commissioned officers “invited” to accompany the Supreme Leader on his “leisure outing” and the unit of Stormtroopers assigned to protect him waited in the hangar. Kind of ridiculous, thought Armitage. As if Kylo needed protecting! But it was better to be safe than sorry, he reasoned.

Never did it cross his mind that the Stormtroopers could be extra security for someone else.

Edrison Peavey was not among those who had received the invitation. They were mostly younger types, who could enjoy an evening of drinks, dancing, and possibly hiring some company of the sort Armitage was meant to represent, although their stipends allowed very little room for such flights of fancy. Nobody would be gambling. They would attend a ballroom, not a casino. Still, he waited before the entrance to the hangar. Armitage noticed him just after he noticed their entourage waiting.

Peavey and Armitage’s eyes met. Armitage could read him unambiguously. Peavey knew about them. He had suspected, but now he knew. Perhaps the whole ship knew. But only Peavey looked Armitage up and down with disgust, and then at the two of them with borderline revulsion. Like High Command and others of his old Imperial ilk, Armitage knew that Peavey would never think of him as the real General Hux.

Well, that was fine. Brendol _was_ the real General Hux, when all was said and done. Armitage was Grand Marshal Hux now, and he was the bedmate of the new Supreme Leader, and the new Supreme Leader had thrown the Humans First policy in the garbage in part for lust of another man whether Peavey liked it or not. He smirked and paid Peavey no further mind. The encounter and Peavey’s horror left him not shrinking with shame, as he had thought that judgment would, but strutting with pride. He threw his head back and his shoulders straight. He had not realized that he made any attempt to appear less visible until that moment.

Perhaps Peavey simply hated him, or perhaps Peavey was jealous and conflicted. Armitage had never known such conflict. He always knew what he was and never pretended otherwise, least of all to himself. But perhaps others lacked his strength of character, and perhaps he could taunt them with something they could never possess: himself.

Kylo offered a gloved hand to help him into the shuttle, brushing the gauzy cuff of a sleeve up to kiss the back of Armitage’s own as he took it. A bold gesture, here in full view of their crew, but one that went without consequence. Armitage knew he had nothing to fear when he rejected Kylo’s arm – and yet he felt he must reject it. _Still_. He climbed into the shuttle unassisted.

The _Supremacy_ was not the only victim of Resistance destruction undergoing repairs. Most of the venues in Canto Bight re-opened while the city was eons shy of reclaiming its full former glory. Money had to be made back. They had sustained a loss after the disaster. Few of the reclamation efforts were still taking place within view of the guests. The show had to go on, and to do that they had to rebuild as quickly as money could allow. They had a certain kind of magic to preserve. All the better to suit the First Order’s needs.

It had taken time to arrange a meeting with their first… contact. They had quite a list of contacts, and a slew of appointments over the course of the new week. Armitage knew he must try to enjoy what this place had to offer and squeeze whatever he could out of the night, because there would be little time to rest over the coming days. As Kylo’s hand found its way to his thigh over and over through their flight, his suspicions were all but confirmed.

They would enjoy themselves.

But their contact was late. This was nothing they had not expected of her. She had a reputation. Her name was Til Miren, and she was the daughter of the man who owned the company that owned the company that owned one Kuat-Entralla Enterprises. Old Man Miren had given this entire company and its profits to his daughter, who had never worked a day in her life. She had nothing to do with the operations or management, but in theory could have. She chose to outsource that laber to the competent, and live the life of luxury her father intended with his gift.

But she was late, and this was nothing they had not expected of her.

With the delay, Armitage let himself observe the splendor of a ballroom in Canto Bight. In thirty-four years he had lived, sequentially, on dismal Arkanis in his father’s attic on a banishment from his father’s wife, on Jakku, and then on ships in space. On the rare occasions he went planetside, Armitage never had the time to ogle at other worlds. Even if he had, none of those worlds glittered like this.

The first things he looked at were the people. Not to gape at the non-humans, but to look back at everyone who looked at him. They appraised Armitage. They made no secret of the way their eyes looked over the tight pants and the translucent shirt. They all wanted to know why the Supreme Leader, so young, so handsome, and so _eligible_ , selected this particular prostitute who none of the regulars in this particular ballroom had ever seen.

He tried not to make eye contact but he _had_ to look at them. Many he could recognize as other prostitutes – no, not _other_ prostitutes! Just prostitutes! He was not a prostitute! He was not even disguised as a prostitute, but a _courtesan_. That was how Kylo pitched it to him. Armitage would intimidate people that only Kylo could impress: royalist holdouts. The oldest of the old money. Til Miren was old money. Kylo engaged briefly with some of them, but this resulted in little more than impressing Armitage with how well he could engage, charm shallowly, and then disengage. Pfft. He probably used the Force to do that.

Armitage kept his eyes down, playing the role he had to play. Kylo never introduced him to anyone. Armitage heard him reference a “companion for the evening” or a “doll” with some affection in his voice, but the rumble of the crowd in the ballroom seemed to rush by his ears, drowning individual words out.

As far as most of the people staring at them knew, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren visited Canto Bight accompanied by a beautiful courtesan, not specifically in celebration of his birthday or his rise to power but simply to mingle, although the people who he spoke to seemed intent on _making_ it about him. They knew nothing about the scheduled meeting. They wanted to get close to Supreme Leader Ren while his reign was young and he might be in need of _assistance_. Armitage Hux felt a stab of jealousy, which was irrational because he also wanted to laugh at the thought that anyone would be closer to Kylo than himself ever again. He knew that Kylo was filing all of their information for later use. Probably glancing around in their minds. Possibly nudging them a little.

Armitage couldn’t engage. Once he became completely overwhelmed and somehow frustrated by the parade of curious, critical, and _lustful_ faces looking at him, his attention turned to _things_. All manner of _things_. Crystal chandeliers, thousands of intricate cuts and bulbs making flowers of light overhead. Mirror-like floors. The handles of machines, tops of bars, and rims of tables, the curling horns of the chamber orchestra, all oiled to brassy perfection. The clothes, all black and white like their own in compliance with the dress code enforced (with varying strictness on a case-by-case basis) by practically every venue in Canto Bight.

Glass flutes – the kind of drinking – filled with bubbling pale yellow liquid. Armitage scarcely had to open his mouth and he found one in his hand. From Naboo. Compliments of the house. Anything for the lovely guest of the esteemed young Supreme Leader, best of luck.

Silvery flutes – the kind for playing music – began a duet. Armitage noticed that the perfectly white soles of his boots touched the raised edge of the expansive dance floor.

“May I have this dance?”

He had realized what Kylo was going to say to him a second before Kylo said it. In all of his looking at the ballroom, he had avoided looking at Kylo. When he spoke, Armitage looked at him, and at once regretted it because he saw what he expected to see.

Kylo Ren was impermissibly beautiful. Something about this place brought out the best in his features. Maybe it was the light. Maybe the light brought out the best in everyone. Maybe it was the drink Armitage had downed, too fast because he had never been educated about how to nurse a drink. Maybe it was the anticipation, exploration, and blossoming intimacy that had become his life building up to a crest… _blossoming_ _intimacy_. Armitage had thought the words _blossoming intimacy_. How putridly virginal of him. He had to stop. He could pleasure Ren and take his pleasure from him, he could share his bed… no, he had to stop thinking of it in those terms, too! Their life was not the subject of blubbering poetry! They were not a novel! Kylo could sell any lies he wanted to the mush-minded simpletons he had to conquer, but they were only lies!

This was a simple, mutually beneficial arrangement between two adults.

“You may,” said Armitage.

Nothing in Kylo’s face said “simple”. Nothing in it even said “adult”. He led Armitage to the center of the dance floor, giving other pairs of dancers pause. They knew who the man in the velvet coat was. Who would crowd Lord Ren, especially when he was trying so hard, with such naïveté, to woo this red-haired courtesan? So he led Armitage to the center of the dance floor, and it was as though they had it all to themselves.

Armitage knew only the barest essentials of ballroom dance. Brendol taught him no more than that. An officer, Brendol said, needed a smattering of functionalist etiquette, but dance was a weapon. A tool for infiltration and rapport-building, not an art, not to an officer. One thing he knew was this musical form. The flute duet served as a call to the dance. It lasted for eight bars of a quiet kind of fanfare, amplified by the acoustics of the hall. Once the eight measures of flutes ended the chamber orchestra played in three-quarter time, slower than a walking pace, music that floated on the night air as if from the garden through the huge window behind them. Just for them, it seemed. Just for Armitage and Kylo, they played.

The glass of fizzing wine had started to kick in but did nothing to quell Armitage’s nerves, only to chip at his self-control. The music, he thought, was beautiful. The man holding him and leading him in small circles from their starting point to an unknown destination was beautiful too. He noticed Armitage’s fingers twitching against his shoulder, where he held onto Kylo, and between their clasped hands. He pulled him closer. Armitage tried to concentrate on the warm, firm hold Kylo had on his back. Was it a dancing form strictly in line with etiquette? No. But they were the First Order.

“You’re doing great,” Kylo whispered.

“Don’t lie to me,” Armitage whispered back. “Don’t _insult_ me.”

“Shhh. All you have to do is follow. Close your eyes for a few seconds and see.”

Armitage shook his head, but closed his eyes. With grinding teeth and a feeling of plummeting, he set the pure white soles of his boots wherever they would land on the polished-slick wood. The course Kylo set for the two of them continued without hesitation. After a few seconds, Armitage opened his eyes. He had successfully stayed on his feet. The nerves were not gone, but a warm, fuzzy feeling began to spread from his stomach. It must have been the wine.

“They’re all staring at us,” he noticed, watching the faces of the crowd swim past them at a distance, like fish in a tank.

“It’s only because you’re so lovely,” Kylo said. The hint of teasing flitted at the end of the statement.

“No,” said Armitage. “It’s… it’s because… _we’re_ so lovely. Together. That’s why they’re staring.”

Kylo inhaled sharply and pulled him close. Armitage stumbled, but only for a beat. In the next one he was back in step with Kylo. It was Kylo’s lead, not Armitage’s following it, that faltered when he held him. Kylo’s cheek was pressed to his. Armitage got the plummeting feeling again, the same one he had when he watched the door of the interrogation room move away from him, the same one he had when Kylo tried to tell him the story of a boy named Kylo, and a boy named Armitage, and…

Armitage closed his eyes. The music changed modes, dipping down into darker notes. He tipped his head back. Spinning, spinning, spinning… only the two of them existed… not even the floor remained below them… the two of them, the unfeeling black of space, and this music…

 

_“…the Prince had been wounded in a battle with an evil, unscrupulous foe.”_

_Armitage Hux was four years old and standing in a hallway, lightless except for two thin slits at the top and bottom of Maratelle Hux’s guest room. He had been banished to the attic, but he snuck out. His little body made no sound as he carefully placed one foot in front of the other on a thin carpet until he could crouch next to this doorway._

_“His blood stained the snow around where he lay. But a beautiful maiden, purer than the snow that crunched under her old, worn-out boots, found him lying there and took him home to her father’s house.”_

_Maratelle Hux had a niece of six years of age, who sometimes visited her aunt at Arkanis Academy. Since Maratelle could not bear children, she clung to every opportunity she could to treat this child as the idea of her own daughter. She hated the sight of the bastard living in her attic, the symbol of her husband’s infidelity and carelessness with her pride and reputation… and little girls were so much nicer than little boys, anyway._

_“Her father was a cruel man who often hit her and tried to control anything and everything she did. He ordered her to stay in her room while the Prince waited for the King’s men to retrieve him, for he knew that she was beautiful and did not want the Prince to take her away to a new life. But she thought nothing of this. She snuck out of her room to tend to the Prince, knowing that he needed her help to heal his wounds fully, and knowing that she wished to look at him. He saw her while he was in a blood-drained, delirious state. Her father caught her. He struck her, knocking her unconscious. When she awoke, the Prince was gone, and she did not know who he had been. When he finally awoke to his senses in the King’s castle, he believed that she had been a dream._

_“The King tired of hearing about the Prince’s dream maiden, believing the fixation unhealthy. He ordered a royal ball. All the neighboring systems sent eligible young noblewomen to attend. Living in her forest home, the maiden heard of the ball. She wished to go. She did not know that the man in the woods was the Prince. She simply wanted to attend the party…”_

_Little Armitage scowled. This girl didn’t deserve to sleep in that big, warm guest bed. He did. She didn’t deserve to fantasize that the maiden in the story was her, as the story was designed to let her do. She didn’t deserve to think about love, wealth, balls, phantasmal party gowns, a handsome prince, or any other privileges denied to him._

_Maratelle swung the door open, her young face scowling down at him, framed by a sickly shade of yellow hair. She had won Brendol Hux by keeping that face in a measured placid mask, and Armitage Hux had been her prize. She struck him. His head hit the wall. She pulled him to his feet and dragged him by the ear back to the attic, hissing curses and censure at him. The attic door closed behind Armitage, who shaking crawled under a pile of laundry stacked on his bed to keep him warm…_

 

They had stopped. The music had stopped.

“Kylo,” he said, hoarse.

“Your thoughts are with Maratelle Hux,” said Kylo, to indicate that he knew.

Armitage nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He looked at the dark eyes, narrowed slightly, and the brow furrowed with concern, at Kylo’s whole visage. It swept elegantly back, framed by the braided forelocks and dark waves. Enshrined.

“I – I – ”

“No.”

Kylo pressed two fingers to his lips.

“No,” he said again. “Not yet. Don’t say it. You’re compromised right now, and you’ve been drinking… don’t say it until you’re sober and calm and know there’s no chance of you ever taking it back. Can you do that? Can you promise me?”

Armitage nodded again. Kylo nodded back, sealing their agreement, and pressed his forehead to Armitage’s. _I am your Prince_ , he heard his voice say. _I am your Prince_. The thought was like an image or a single character projected into his mind. He perceived all four words as if they were spoken in one syllable. Kylo pressed his lips to Armitage’s forehead. It was not the same kiss he pressed to Armitage’s hand in the hangar. It stood in for everything he would do to him if they were alone on the dance floor.

Then, he abruptly raised his head, looked past a narrow, suede-clad shoulder, and let go.

“Can you see my surroundings?”

Armitage whipped around, snarling. He could not see her, of course, but he _hoped_ she could see his face and how much he detested her. She ruined their moment! What would have happened next? He didn’t know, and now he never would! _She ruined it!_

Kylo nodded slowly and held up a hand to Armitage – _don’t follow me_ , his voice said. Armitage wanted to follow him. He wanted to shout at him and berate him until he made this nonsense _stop_. She had no business continuing to appear to him! Kylo had things to do! He had a Galaxy to rule! He had a Hux to seduce!

But he did not follow Kylo. He stayed fixed to the spot in the center of the dance floor with his fists clenched at his sides and color burning on every inch of his face. Kylo was impossible to lose in a crowd. He watched the tall, black-clad, black-crowned figure jerk through the partygoers to a balcony where he could speak to her privately.

No. To Hell with that. Armitage followed him. He would eavesdrop. But someone stopped him the second he crossed from the wood of the dance floor to the sparkling grey marble of the rest of the venue. For one horrible second he thought she was Maratelle Hux. Her hair had almost the same sickly yellow color. His eyes went wide and he nearly screamed. But it was not Maratelle Hux. Maratelle was dead. She was dead, she died in the bombing of Arkanis, and she would never find Armitage again. He had to remind himself for a moment.

“Oh my _stars_!” she cooed, drawing out the vowel in the last word. “You were with Supreme Leader Ren, weren’t you? I’m so sorry for being late. Let’s go grab him off that balcony, come on!”

“No!” barked Armitage, hearing an accent and pattern of speech on his tongue he had never heard before. “He… he hears things. You know how some people hear things. Sees things, too. Leave him alone. He’ll come back.”

_What the Hell was that?_ Armitage asked himself.

Til Miren stared at Supreme Leader Ren’s call boy. It was pretty astounding how he found the _one_ hooker in the _whole_ Galaxy who was a _dead ringer_ for General Hux… fifteen years ago. The kid couldn’t be a day over twenty. She had seen a couple of Hux’s speeches from before Ren’s day, and a couple of Ren’s speeches with Hux. Although she wasn’t sure what any of them were about, this hooker being here explained a lot, honestly. It was kind of sad. She couldn’t breathe a word of what she knew to either of the two of them, though.

She wasn’t sure what the First Order was about, but weren’t all those political groups _basically_ the same, at the end of the day? She didn’t need to know who said what. She just needed to let weapons sell themselves and keep on living her best life.

Til could relate to Kylo Ren in one respect: she loved inappropriate men. Poets, the kind who were rough around the edges and appreciated good spice. Artists. New rich. And men who looked like they might have something illegal in their history! Those were the best. She wasn’t like the rest of her family _at all_. They were stuffy. Stuck in the past. Embarrassing to be seen with. Til was different. She was forward-thinking. The Empire was over! The monarchy didn’t mean anything anymore! None of it was coming back! They were, like, total captains of industry now! It was time to start acting like it! She surrounded herself with people who reflected her outlook – especially inappropriate men. She _swooned_!

It made perfect sense to her that Ren, from a respectable royal lineage and with his modern ideology, was head over heels for that maniac.

It also made perfect sense that Hux left him so frustrated he hired a hustler who looked just like him.

Armitage Hux stared at Til Miren. Her shoes put her within two inches of his height. Her pillow-like lips and long, sweeping lashes always seemed to smile, even when she cocked her head at him and frowned. But Armitage Hux could understand such a thing. Her frowns looked like smiles. His smiles always looked like frowns. Nobody ever mentioned it to him, including Kylo, but in thirty-four years he had noticed.

Her lips always seemed to smile because they were fake. Her hips, allowed freedom by two slits in her tight black dress, were also fake. Breasts? Cheekbones? Fake, he would wager. The sickly yellow hair? Well, Maratelle’s hair was never real, and Til had black roots besides. It took him a minute, then, to realize that she owned a multi-billion-credit weapons manufacturing network. He had never been so glad that he harbored no faculty for lust toward women, or he would have forgotten who he was in the presence of a woman like this. As it was, he just felt a little more ill than he had before he went to track Kylo down.

“He said something about blueprints,” Armitage was able to say.

“Yeah!” chirped Til. “Supreme Leader Ren wants to understand the ships he’s flying and the weapons the First Order uses, which is more than the last Supreme Leader ever did. I so appreciate the open communication. Hey, what _is_ that accent? You don’t sound _Imperial_ , but you sound kind of _like_ an Imperial.”

“I’m from – ” He stopped short of saying Arkanis on instinct. He must not tell the truth. “ – I’m an engineering student and revealing any information about my identity could jeopardize my future in the field.”

“Ohhhh,” said Til Miren, nodding. Her appearance had unnerved him at first sight (cosmetic surgery was not a practice of the First Order, especially not on a dramatic scale), but he did appreciate her habit of making direct eye contact when she spoke to someone. She also did not seem to be speaking to him with any less dignity than she would speak to someone who she did not think was a prostitute. What had to be done would still have to be done, and he still found her manner obnoxious. “So you’re not a prostitute,” she said bluntly.

“Not yet,” said Armitage, and she shrieked with laughter so loudly he felt like he had been hit in the side of the head.

Kylo Ren heard nothing of this exchange. His gloved hands touched the stone guardrail of the balcony, not resting there, but wanting to look as though they did. He showed less hesitation about touching Armitage’s thighs, and Armitage was a human with the ability to refuse him. His eyes were wide and his nostrils flared. He stood as straight as the columns behind him. The vision of Rey floated over the sprawling garden and orchard below him. It was a two-story drop. She was level with him, less far away from Kylo than Kylo was tall.

“I don’t have any desire to see you again,” he told her, remembering what an idiot he made of himself last time. Did she see him hit the wall? She might have a better memory of his foolishness than anyone else.

“Do you think I want to see _you_?”

Rey gave no indication that she thought any differently of him for knocking himself out. All of the vitriol remained present and fresh. She wore a robe, hooded and dirty, of some rough, pale-colored material. He could not see her surroundings. She had confirmed that she could not see his – and as such, she had not seen Armitage.

“I’ve been trying to shut you out since Crait,” said Rey. “I never want to see you again. I know I’ll have to, one more time. But that’s the only time I’ll be able to look at your face without feeling sick – when I’m finishing what I started.”

“I’m not going to pretend you don’t infuriate me,” said Kylo, desperately holding the fury back.

“I want nothing more than to slam the door and have done with you, but it just won’t _stay_ shut,” said Rey.

“You’ve tried shutting me out?” he asked.

“Of course I have,” Rey sneered. “I’m not giving you another chance to – ”

“No, I mean, we can try to shut each other out,” Kylo clarified. “Maybe if we both try it at the same time. Maybe we have to agree to not see each other.”

Rey frowned. “I… fine. Fine. Let’s try.”

He cut the connection between them like closing a door. She vanished. He could only assume it had worked. He opened the door again. “Rey.”

Rey reappeared over the garden. “Go away!”

“Did it work?” he asked.

“Until you opened it again!”

“Are you going to begrudge me simple curiosity?”

“Yes!”

“Oh. I see how it is.”

Again, they both shut the connection. So, thought Kylo, they could cut off the connection, but they both had to agree to close it. If he tried, he could open it again. Both Kylo and Rey had keeping the connection closed in their best interest, for the sake of the First Order and the Resistance, respectively. But there could be a time, thought Kylo, when opening it could work to his advantage. Good to know.

Shortly thereafter, Kylo gathered his composure and returned to the ballroom. Til Miren waved him down from her booth. Armitage watched him approaching. Had Kylo looked that pale before? He sat at Armitage’s side and slipped his hand under the table to squeeze his thigh.

“My companion is not accustomed to the atmosphere of Canto Bight,” Kylo explained to the heiress. “Please forgive him if he’s standoffish.”

Armitage looked into his second glass of the yellow fizzing wine. He did not drink it. He knew his role in this play. But Til Miren looked at him, and something prickling up the back of his neck told him that she knew the truth. He occupied himself with the blueprints that Til Miren had happily given them for their perusal, stored in a datapad nearly as wide as Hux’s shoulders. She did not seem to notice that only the young engineering student cared about them.

“I thank you for agreeing to meet me here,” Kylo went on. “I know that in the past the First Order has had an impersonal relationship with the captains of industry it dealt with. I want to change that. It’s time for old ways to die.”

“ _Yes!_ ” said Til Miren, as if she had never met another sentient being who understood anything about her. “It’s _so important_ for businesses to become… more like people! Businesses are people. I want a future that’s cooperative and compassionate, not competitive and impersonal!”

“Cooperation,” said Kylo, leaning on the table. “Is at the core of everything I want my leadership to embody.”

Armitage bit his lip. She had one or two personal habits that he didn’t hate, but he did not want to listen to this woman speak a second longer than they had to. Kylo seemed determined to keep her speaking. He would take one word and reflect it back at her so she could enjoy looking at herself in the conversational mirror. The more she talked, the more she reminded him of Maratelle. His memories of Maratelle Hux were almost thirty years old. How ridiculous of him to see her in anyone! She died when he was a tiny child. But he remembered her hair. He would never forget the color.

“… _kindness_ is so important…”

“Kindness.”

“There’s enough work for everyone to profit if we just stop all this senseless…”

“Completely senseless.”

_You make war ships!_ Armitage wanted to shout.

“So. What I need you to do,” said Kylo, at welcome last. “Is stop selling to anyone but the First Order.”

Til Miren had been a bubbling fountain of words up until this point. She stared at Kylo for several seconds. “No.”

“Til,” said Kylo. “It’s in the best interest of a cooperative, compassionate future that all of your companies stop selling to anyone but the First Order. I know that Kuat-Entralla has dealt only with the First Order lately, and their alliance has been indispensable and appreciated. But we need all of the others to stop.”

“I’m a businesswoman – ”

“No, you aren’t,” said Armitage. It slipped out, and so did his real accent, but he was beyond caring. He knew how this encounter would end.

Kylo grabbed him by the forearm, not rough but abrupt, to still him. “—mitage,” he muttered, losing the first syllable through his teeth.

“Wait. What did you just call him?” asked Til. She looked from the blueprints to Armitage and back to the blueprints. She knew. She was sliding involuntarily to leave the booth. “I need those back. Right now.”

“What can you make of them?” Kylo asked Armitage.

“I can see immediate opportunities for improvement,” said Armitage. “Too many for me to count offhand.”

“Good,” said Kylo. “I’m going to trust you with the undertaking.”

“I wouldn’t let you trust anyone else with it,” sniffed Armitage, as he swiped through the large datapad full of blueprints. “Kylo!” he said abruptly. “Kylo. I know how to rebuild the _Supremacy_ and make it better. It’ll be cheap. We use the parts, we give it a new life… it’ll be a new ship, it won’t be Snoke’s ship when I’ve re-birthed it…!”

“What’s going on?!” Til Miren demanded.

Kylo Ren sighed. He rolled his eyes. He held out his right hand.

“You will transfer control of all your assets to the First Order,” he intoned.

“N… no…”

“You will sign the contract presented to you and transfer control and ownership of all your assets to the First Order.”

“No… they’re mine…”

“They are not _yours_ ,” said Armitage. “Your father gave them to you to ensure you wouldn’t have to work. You did nothing.”

“Become part of something greater than yourself,” Kylo suggested. “Do your part in reaching a cooperative future. You want that, don’t you? You will sign the contract presented to you and transfer control and ownership of all your assets to the First Order. Do what’s right. Stop thinking in profits, think in gains. Think of the greater good, Til. You have a responsibility to help defend the Galaxy from destruction.”

Til hesitated. “What am I… if I’m not defending the Galaxy from destruction…” She began to nod. “I’m not like my family. I want to do good with my power. I want to do the right thing.”

“You will sign the contract presented to you,” said Kylo. “And transfer full control and ownership of all your assets to the First Order.”

By the time he pulled the datapad from his coat and handed it to Til Miren, it was too late. Her fingers wiggled with eagerness to grab the stylus and sign everything away. She beamed as she handed it back to him.

“You’ve done the right thing,” said Kylo. He could not maintain his hold over her forever, but he could lay the groundwork for a continued mindset, especially in a mind as weak as hers. She would do the rest to justify her actions with morality in retrospect, or it would veer her into self-destruction. Kylo did not care which. It would not matter soon. “You’ll be one of the heroes of this war. Now, you’re going to stay where you are – ” For the sake of appearances, so nobody would know who was in control. “ – to remain in a consulting position and help with the transition, but we’ll be sending a delegation from the First Order to manage your businesses. We’ll handle the transfer of power with those you’ve assigned to run them up to this point.”

Til Miren sighed in relief.  “Oh, good. I really have no idea how any of it works.”

Kylo gave her one of his slight smiles, sardonic, but gentle. “I know.”

Armitage had become too absorbed in muttering over the blueprints of a Mega-Class Star Dreadnaught – of which the _Supremacy_ had been one. When he saw the structure of it laid out in such a concise manner, he could see everything wrong with it – or not _wrong_ , but inefficient. Sub-optimal. The foreman and his crew would have seen these images. The ships were not what they had come for. This one simply caught Armitage’s attention. The weaponry was their real concern, the trade secrets that Til had bundled in with the starships… but something about the lines and the inner workings of this one grabbed him. It would not let him go.

Kylo squeezed Armitage’s shoulder to get his attention. Til had left. Armitage barely remembered who she was. Kylo was looking at him with curiosity and a mix of other emotions that Armitage would need time to categorize. Self-assurance. Endearment. Subdued exhilaration. If _power_ could be an emotion, that was what Kylo felt. It infected Armitage.

“Ready to go?” he asked Armitage.

Looking at him snapped Armitage’s attention away from the blueprints just as quickly as the blueprints snapped it away from the world around them. He remembered that they were on the planet Cantonica, in the coastal city of infamous decadence and materialism, paid for by their war. He and Kylo were disguised as two of the indulgent, self-centered creditcrunchers who populated it. They had fit right in. Kylo looked like a prince – which by right he was, but he had never looked it before. All the temptation this place represented, all the privilege and luxury that wrecked the Galaxy and that part of Armitage selfishly yearned for like anyone would, was embodied in front of him in the form of a man who he knew stood for the same ideals as Armitage did. He looked just as exquisite and enviable in his posturing as anyone or anything else here in sincerity.

Separated from the mission they had accomplished it struck him as funnier than anything he had seen in recent memory. Maybe it was the wine. He laughed.

Kylo frowned and examined his face. “Armitage?”

“Yes!” said Armitage. “Yes. I’m ready to return to the First Order.”

“Do you…” Kylo looked around them at the gilded trappings of the ballroom. “I can give you this. I can save anything you want saved. You know it won’t be able to exist much longer.”

“I do know,” said Armitage, following his eyes to survey it all.

“I can save it for you. It doesn’t have to disappear if you say so. Anything you want can be saved for you.”

“That’s so selfish,” Armitage chided. “That’s so _individualistic_ of you, Kylo.” They were the two most flagrant individualists living and they both knew it. It was what let them reach the top.

“If I hadn’t had you,” said Kylo. “I’d have been perfect in austerity. But I can’t resist offering this to you. It would be the same as openly denying you it.”

Armitage looked at the ballroom for what he knew was the last time. It could not be saved. The cost would be too high, although not in credits. He compared it to Brendol and Maratelle’s home below the attic and to the Arkanis Academy. As a small child it seemed as though Brendol and Maratelle possessed _everything_. Like they were rich. Like their house was huge. But none of that was true, and he knew it now. The house was two stories, but it was always cold and the carpet was worn thin. They never lived extravagantly. They were not _poor_ , but compared to the shining sentients gliding past him, compared to the riches others in the Galaxy had…

Brendol and Maratelle were _poor_.

“Any luxury we reserve for ourselves must be undetectable to the masses as luxury,” said Armitage. “It could incite rebellion. We’ll have to create something new, by new standards, and we can never share it.”

Kylo sighed, nodding. He looked as though he wanted to preserve some of the Galaxy’s decadence. Armitage could not say that he was happy about the idea of all of it withering away himself, but sacrifices were necessary, even for the best of the best. “I want you to be able to have this,” Kylo said to him. “I can sense that you want it, in a way.”

“I don’t need it,” Armitage reassured him. “Whatever we build will surpass it. I don’t want to dwell on it. Let the past die, as you say. Come along. Let’s go.”

“What about a bottle of the wine?” said Kylo, nodding to Armitage’s glass. He barely touched the second drink. Sobriety had set in again. “Do you want to get a bottle of that?”

Armitage looked at the glass. “Yes,” he agreed. “Let’s get a bottle. That will do.”

He held the bottle on his lap through the shuttle ride back. They spoke of the future and the _present_ which did not yet seem quite real. The remaining systems were submitting to the First Order’s reign. Once they ensured the financial support of the entire war industrial complex and any of the old holdouts of nobility they could clutch, societies that so desperately needed the First Order to overhaul them would enter new ages. The First Order would change _everything_. A strong, unified Galaxy was just over the horizon.

In this way, by the time they were back in sight of the _Finalizer_ , the ballroom in Canto Bight was no longer the unattainable fantasy of a life Armitage Hux could never know. It became a battleground. The bottle of wine was a trophy, a sign of conquest. The _Finalizer_ was more exciting after Canto Bight than Canto Bight could ever be, because Armitage did not have to pretend to be anyone else while inside it.

… _they_ did not have to pretend to be anyone else. Neither of them. The hangar was empty before the shuttles with the commissioned officers landed. By the time they did, Armitage had followed Kylo away, pulled by his wrist in Kylo’s hand with the gauze of his shirt crushed and pulled in the other man’s grip. He carried the bottle of wine by its neck. The few crew members they encountered gave them a wide berth. Armitage relished their stares now. No shame when they went to his quarters together. No shame when Kylo shut the door behind them, set the wine on Armitage’s desk, and pushed him against the door, pinning his arms at his sides.

The excitement that peaked with their first kiss had returned. Kylo savored it this time. He let Armitage try to fight his way out and claim that excitement for himself. But his struggle came to naught. He surrendered and resigned himself to waiting for Kylo to claim him instead.

“I’m going to make you earn that uniform,” he said. It was not a threat. It was not an order. It was a simple statement of fact.

“Which one?” panted Armitage. He felt that he could almost tear himself from his own body. “The Grand Marshal’s? Or the whore’s?”

“Both.”

His back arched as Kylo kissed him. The kiss was the natural continuation of the anticipation before it. Kylo’s lips parted Armitage’s, and Armitage waited as his tongue pushed between them. He had to wait. Waiting, as he did while Kylo kept breaking the kiss to look at Armitage losing his last shreds of composure, was part of the pleasure of losing to him. He was, at once, the contemptible piece of trash Armitage had fought again, the man who could understand Armitage and be understood by him, and the entity to whom he could submit.

“Are you open to me?” asked Kylo.

“Yes,” gasped Armitage. He had been open to him for days. He had not noticed it happening, but as the voice and the dark eyes consumed him he hoped he could never close himself against Kylo again.

“Do you want it?”

“Yes!”

When he thought he could not stand, Kylo made him stand. He pulled him away from the door and set him in the direction of his bed. Gloved fingers trailed over his hips before he had to support himself on shaking legs.

“Walk.”


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not read this in public.  
> Do not read this in public.  
> Do not read this in public.
> 
>  
> 
> Do not read this in public.

“Slowly.”

Armitage had known through the whole of Canto Bight that this encounter would happen after they left Cantonica. He knew, he supposed, that it would happen from the moment Kylo told him that they would meet one of their contacts in the manufacturing sphere there to consolidate their power. He had known, and he had quietly anticipated it as a constant source of pleasure and reassurance in the back of his mind, a goal to reach, a reward all but promised. Kylo would stake his claim. Armitage was already his in all but the act of taking. He was already his because he wanted Kylo to look at him with hunger, and because Kylo looked at no-one else in such a way.

Armitage also knew that as he put one white-soled boot cautiously in front of the other, Kylo stared from several paces behind at his shaking thighs, sleeved in soft dark material that begged for his touch. Each time the cape moved and caught the very top of the curve of his rear, he felt his breath catch, or his back arch again, or one of his legs jerk ever so slightly on the way to the next step. He heard the guttural, animal grunts and heavy breathing behind him. By the measure of his past Kylo showed remarkable self-control.

He waited for the command to turn around when he reached his bed. Armitage looked at the pillows. Housekeeping droids made it while they were out. The sheets were black, but crisp and pristine. Like the Grand Marshal himself, they were about to be ruined.

“Turn.”

Kylo had already swept the velvet and fur coat from his shoulders and tossed it across the foot of the bed. He reached for the clasp holding Armitage’s cape across his narrow shoulders. Armitage tipped his head back, aware of how the movement exposed his throat. With the clasp undone, Kylo let the cape hang over him briefly before lifting it away.

“Do not cover yourself.”

The cape joined Kylo’s coat across the foot of the bed. The chill of the _Finalizer_ , despite Armitage’s continued efforts to find a medium temperature between his comfort and the bounds of practicality, cut right through the gauze. Armitage wanted to huddle for warmth. With Kylo looking at his body openly, sizing him up like a ship or a weapon or a cut of meat, he had rarely felt so exposed. His nipples hardened under the thin material, not pushing against it but rising to barely meet it.

“Bend over the side of the bed.”

Kylo never forbade him to speak, and yet Armitage knew that for the sake of his own enjoyment he must remain silent until addressed. The kind of _yes_ he gave Kylo when pinned against the door of his quarters was the only kind he would give – a response to a direct question. He never affirmed the commands verbally. He never nodded. He responded to them only by his obedience. With his elbows supporting him on the bed, he looked at Kylo for approval.

“Arch your back. You have to earn it.”

Armitage hesitated. He tried to remember the feeling of arching his back when Kylo kissed him. Seeing his uncertainty, Kylo helped guide him. His back arched in a deep slope with his torso pulled closer to the edge of the bed. His head lowered until his cheek pressed to the mattress. Kylo gently pushed his legs apart. When Armitage tensed against his own will, Kylo waited with reassuring touches and words until he fulfilled the command. But Armitage was unaccustomed to touch, even by his own hand. Kylo had held him and indulged in the lure he felt to Armitage’s hips and thighs, but that seemed so tame now, as tame as it would have been to hold his arm. Although Kylo wanted to reassure him, the hand on his body made him writhe.

“Good boy, Armitage. I feel so proud of you, seeing you like this… knowing you want to please me… try to be still…”

Kylo wanted him passive and compliant. How disgusting Kylo was, Armitage thought, expecting him to behave in such a way. He referred to him as his doll in Canto Bight, did he not? Was that what Kylo wished of him? To be a doll? That swine. Armitage swelled with pride. How depraved of him to want to please a man like Kylo, to feel his approval swirling in his head with more power than the wine he drank had and then course right between his legs.

“I didn’t expect to want you this way,” said Kylo, squeezing the inner part of Armitage’s thigh. “Yes, I knew that I would want you. I wanted to want you. I wanted you to feel that I did. But seeing you like this is almost driving me into a rage.”

His fingers moved to prod Armitage’s rear. Armitage could feel his own shape under Kylo’s hands more keenly than he had ever felt it before. Every word of praise, every muttered objectifying comment, sent tiny whimpers of pleasure into his pressed-shut mouth and sent his fingers curling in the sheet next to his head. He could see them. He cursed how small they looked compared to the ones he felt groping him. When they slipped between his thighs to touch the erection pressed against the tight trousers and their metal clasps, he yelped.

“You hate me right now,” said Kylo, laughter in his tone. “You feel like you’re being reduced to an object, but you’re drinking up my approval.”

Armitage huffed through his nose. Nothing was hidden. His body was exposed to Kylo, and so was his mind. Inevitably, he wondered if Kylo intended to take him like this. His rational mind knew that he could not be taken yet. He was not ready. But the part of his mind that wanted to be ignored by the man touching him in favor of his body hoped it happened.

“And now you’re thinking about me taking you this way… bent over like a slut…”

His lips pressed over Armitage’s concealed hole elicited a shaking moan.

“You’re not an object to me,” said Kylo. “I wanted to tell you how lovely you are while I had the chance. I admire you so much, Armitage. You work so hard. You work harder than anyone else. You believe in doing right more than anyone.” He did not exclude himself from the statement. “But you work so hard, and you never allow yourself pleasure… I want to help you enjoy yourself. I shouldn’t have made you feel like you were just a doll to me. Forgive me.”

The mixed emotions tore at Armitage until tears formed in his eyes. Not just a doll… but still a doll. But a doll Kylo cherished and admired, one who he knew had needs and who he wanted to care for. His lips pressed to Armitage’s lower back through his shirt. He untucked it from the trousers where it had stayed all evening and kissed the newly bared skin.

“I won’t take you like this,” he said. “I can’t take you yet. You know that. I won’t do it before you’re ready, even if you beg me – I can see that your mind wants it, but I won’t give it to you. I won’t hurt you. Not ever again.”

Armitage wished nothing more than to beg. He wished Kylo would unhand him, so that he would have an excuse to lower himself further and hear Kylo condescend to him until he finally acquiesced to grant Armitage his undoing.

“I’m going to help you up now, Armitage.”

Armitage, despite his yearning to please and submit, made a noise of protest that Kylo knew to ignore. The front of the trousers had become damp already. Kylo had felt it, but now, as he helped Armitage up, sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled Armitage into his lap, he could see it. He looked directly at it, then at Armitage, who did not look at Kylo. The tears of pleasure were cool on his face in the cold air of his bedroom, despite his burning skin and throbbing pulse.

“Look at me, Armitage.”

It might not be as torturous if Kylo would not say his name. He accepted his name, and he was open to Kylo, but it sounded too good. He enjoyed it too much. Kylo would force him to experience more than physical pleasure… he made himself look when Kylo touched his chin.

“Do I need to order you to enjoy this?”

_No_. Everything in Armitage clung to the safety of frigid displeasure, to his loathing for Kylo and the things Kylo made him feel, and to his forced suspicions of the man’s motives. Everything wanted to say no, except the part of him that wanted to hear Kylo call him good and beautiful and _his_.

“Yes.”

“Yes…?”

“Yes… Kylo.”

“You will enjoy this,” Kylo said firmly. “Just like you bent over for me. Just like you’re being a good little doll and sitting on my lap, so sweet…” The words were like corrosive acid to Armitage. “You’ll enjoy this in the same way you’ve obeyed my other commands. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Kylo.”

Under orders, he could not hate how soft his voice sounded. He had to _like_ it instead. The murmured praise calling him a good boy helped, but it nearly broke him. It hurt. He _couldn’t_ like sounding soft and submissive. He _mustn’t_. Liking that would mean something worse than being forced into submission. If Kylo let him feel that he was being taken forcibly, it would allow Armitage the dignity of preserving the identity he had shown the First Order, his troops, his rivals, his underlings… _enjoying_ it would mean that this side of him had always been there, waiting for Kylo to find it. It would mean he was weak, needy, and wanted to be ruled by someone stronger than himself. It would mean that he _wanted_ to feel weightless and defenseless on Kylo’s lap, that he _wanted_ to gasp with delight when he felt that mouth sucking his chest through his shirt, that he _wanted_ to spread his legs as Kylo undid three of his clasps, one by one, caressing his stomach and thighs and the bulge held behind the cage of clasps between each step closer to freeing him.

He did want it. Armitage pushed Kylo’s head to his chest, feeling proud of the sweat and saliva soaking the delicate shirt. He raised his own fingers to replace Kylo’s mouth when it moved away to kiss his neck or his face instead. He wanted the huge, throbbing cock pressed under his thigh most of all. He wanted it everywhere, marking him with its scent as the Supreme Leader’s whore, even in ways that he and Kylo had explicitly agreed not to act out. Kylo pulled it out and let it taunt him. Soon, Armitage would have it. He would wait for it. He would wait for Kylo to give him the privilege of pleasing it. If only Kylo were truly the monster Armitage made him out to be, he would ignore the things Armitage said while in his right mind and make him a whore completely…

“Never,” said Kylo, hearing the thoughts present in his mind.

“Please?” Armitage begged.

“No.”

“ _Kylo_ …”

“You’re completely a whore _because_ you’ve asked for it,” said Kylo. “You’ll earn your title by obeying me. There’s a difference between what you want and what you need, isn’t that right?”

He threw Armitage’s own words back in his face. Kylo was more depraved than Armitage had ever imagined, and more than Armitage had ever been in his own practices. Armitage tried to grab the last clasp holding him in his wet trousers, but an unseen hand caressed it and moved it back to his chest.

“Armitage, you’re so cute… straining for release… you have to wait until I let you out… I love how soft you are… you’re not used to being touched, not even by yourself… mm, but you will be soon…”

Then came the worst. When Kylo met his eyes, Armitage knew that his own were even more clouded. As they looked at each other he felt a spike of pleasure inside of him. Kylo had pushed against the sweet spot inside of him without touching it. Armitage barely knew what it felt like to indulge in such a way alone. It was unbearable. He clung. He was going to cum before Kylo even undressed him if Kylo did not stop. Armitage shook his head desperately.

“Kylo… please…!”

“You will enjoy this. You don’t have a choice. You will enjoy this.”

“Nnn--! No!”

“Yes. Let go.”

Armitage did not want to let go. He did not want to climax in Kylo’s arms and prove Kylo’s mastery of him, but he could not stop himself. It felt too good, and the thought of enjoying being mastered, seeing himself that way, felt too good too. He was Kylo’s. One moan betrayed him. Kylo pushed against the spot and let Armitage thrust against his hand until he came with a long, ripped-forth cry. The final clasp had still not been undone. He wished Kylo would stop before he was milked dry, to let it end, but he did not, and Armitage relished the feeling of finally stilling in his arms when he had nothing left to surrender to him. The trousers were ruined. The gauze of the shirt had been crushed, crumpled, and wet with Kylo’s tongue. To be so disheveled humiliated him, but he would do anything that Kylo asked.

“I’m sorry… I… too soon…”

“No,” said Kylo. “I’m pleased.” Warmth curled in Armitage’s stomach. “That was what I wanted. I want you to embrace pleasure and passion. You’ve earned the whore’s uniform by ruining it.”

Armitage nodded. Kylo eased him onto the pillows.

“Strip. But keep the boots on.”

Strip? How? Sitting up or worse, _standing_ was out of the question. But he took it one step at a time. He unbuttoned the shirt, pulled his arms from the sleeves, and let it remain under him – it was ruined anyway. He tried to push his briefs and pants off, but the last clasp kept them stuck. He looked helplessly at Kylo and tried to speak. Kylo was taking off his suit and returning it to their closet. He cared about propriety at this, of all times, when Armitage wanted him and Armitage could _see_ that Kylo wanted him even more. Armitage knew that the erection was his own doing. He still felt the thrill of fear when he looked at Kylo’s size, but Kylo had honored Armitage’s boundaries and safety so far… even when Armitage begged him not to.

Kylo looked at him, confused, but saw that the fourth clasp remained closed and that Armitage would not undo it himself. He smiled and clicked it open, then slid Armitage’s boots off so he could help him take off the trousers. The boots went back on. In only them, his socks, and his garters, Armitage somehow felt none of the cold in the air.

He waited until Kylo stood over him, naked, and laid a hand on his knee. It glided up and down his leg, then back and forth between his hips and his neck. Kylo seemed more than content to take his time and look at Armitage, enjoying the sight of him with no sass or defiance left in him, but Armitage could not bear to look at Kylo. Kylo had no need of defiance. He had self-assured control of his doll.

Even softened and incapable of true arousal this soon after orgasm, Armitage did feel aroused, but not in the same way as before. He had no words for it. It was deeper. He had no desire to change it. He wanted Kylo to stand above him and look at him. Kylo belonged there, and Armitage belonged under him. But he also wanted the moment when he would move onward.

When he felt lubricant slicked on his inner thighs, he knew what Kylo intended to do and he felt relieved. It would never have occurred to Armitage to try that, and he had had no idea what Kylo planned. He and Kylo had agreed that they would not attempt penetration until they had the time and willingness to prepare over the preceding days (possibly weeks, for Armitage’s sake). He flatly refused to take him in his mouth. To his surprise, Kylo had responded that he didn’t want Armitage to anyway, but when he thought about it Armitage understood why.

He used more lubricant than he needed – a condescending act, as Armitage had wanted Kylo to talk down to him and taunt him while he begged for his cock before. He took care of Armitage. He pampered him. He made him feel like he could not take care of himself. Everything from his thighs to his abdomen became wet enough for Kylo to use.

Kylo held Armitage’s legs together and hooked them over one of his shoulders. Armitage’s toes curled inside of his boots and one of his knees rubbed against the other. The feeling of his slick skin against itself, waiting for use, was the feeling he became most aware of. Until then, Armitage had laid with his eyes shut on the verge of dozing off. Kylo took one of Armitage’s hands, which had fallen limply at his side. He opened his eyes and saw Kylo with one arm holding his thighs and kissing at the joints of his knees, which buckled together. He saw the long, thick cock pushing between his thighs. His flesh had to give in places and bulge in others to accommodate it. Even his thighs looked smaller compared to it, and tantalizing even to his own sight. He could not look at it without looking at his own, which was of a perfectly respectable size when erect, but when soft and placed next to Kylo’s, it looked small. Insignificant. Cute, to use the word Kylo had gotten so fond of saying. He could not look away from the image and did not want to. It felt right. He would hate himself later, but Armitage never wanted to forget it.

The implications were unmistakable. He knew that Kylo could see him coming to understand. Armitage tried to cover his mouth and his panting, but his hand felt heavy. It was so much easier to give up when the Force pushed it back down and not to try again when Kylo shook his head at him. It was so much easier and more pleasant to lie back and let Kylo use him. Small. Soft. Passive. Compliant. Obedient. Weak. In need of his rule.

“Say it,” Kylo grunted, for he could see what Armitage thought of himself.

“Mmn… I’m… I’m your bitch…”

“Whose?”

“Yours, Supreme Leader!”

“Are you happy?”

“Yes!”

The Supreme Leader’s bitch watched thick streams of cum marking him. He was as filthy as Kylo, who made him his equal in degeneracy. The self-indulgent, the common, the lustful, they had stained him. But that was long ago. His fate was sealed from the beginning. Kylo had now asserted his claim to Armitage, as well as Armitage’s fall, by his will. Armitage could not have been happier. He let himself enjoy it. He lay motionless when Kylo withdrew himself, knowing that if Kylo returned to him or left him there he would be content with what he had enjoyed so far. He wanted him back, but if he did not receive, he had no right to complain. Whatever his Supreme Leader willed, he willed.

But Kylo did return to his side. Armitage accepted Kylo cleaning him up, giving him water, and kissing him into his pillow with gratitude that was enthusiastic, if largely inarticulate. Kylo’s will was his, and it was to his benefit. The kisses were not the end. It never seemed to stop completely, only to slow down as Kylo required. Kylo talked him back into coherency and the barest slivers of a will of his own, just to strip it away from Armitage again. He wanted Armitage to resist, hear his commands, and surrender to pleasure. The periods of resistance became shorter (although they were never long) until Kylo found that he could not return Armitage to a state of resistance. This satisfied him, and he rewarded Armitage with a long, thorough kiss and a long, thorough stint of Kylo’s hand around him and Kylo’s head between his legs. Kylo’s voice whispered his name and his own voice said whatever Kylo required of it… he was his, he wanted to be good for him, he wanted to earn his promotion, please, Supreme Leader, please… every secret Kylo saw in Armitage’s mind as the days passed he had learned from, elaborated on, and given back to Armitage as something far more dangerous than Armitage could ever have dreamed up.

 

Much, much later, Armitage awoke in only the light of his bedside lamp, unsure of when he had fallen asleep. “Passed out” was more likely than “fallen asleep”. He still felt the lingering echoes of the submission he had enjoyed earlier, but his sense had mostly returned. He had yet to feel the crash of what they had done… but he never felt a crash afterwards when they played the opposite roles, did he? He felt a crash after he kissed Kylo and had his legs around him on the Eclipse, but he knew that had not been because of Kylo. Maybe there would never be a crash. Maybe he only assumed so, because these things seemed so abhorrent to him in the past. Did he want to crash? It would allow him the same dignity as denying his desires would have.

In the moment, he enjoyed the feeling of having been soundly debauched, cleaned up, and held to Kylo’s side as Kylo slept. Armitage’s cape remained at the foot of the bed where someone had pushed the blankets down, but Kylo had pulled his coat over Hux. The fur collar touched his cheek. It almost felt _primitive_. Perish the thought. Except, no. Cherish the thought. The coat belonged to Kylo and smelled like him (disgusting, said a nagging voice in the back of his mind). It was an extension of him. The coat and Kylo himself were all that kept Armitage so deliciously warm as he felt in his bed, because they both lost consciousness before either of them had thought to turn on the heating. Without them, Armitage’s slender, naked body would have been exposed to the cold, just as helpless without Kylo as he was when Kylo laid claim to him.

The thought gave him a tingling feeling in his chest and made him even warmer. Kylo had mated him. He belonged to him. He was the most powerful man in the Galaxy, and Armitage Hux was his. But Armitage possessed him as well. Kylo was unpredictable, wild, and rough by nature, but he wanted to be gentle and self-controlled for Armitage in either role he took.  For all that Armitage cried that he wanted to please Kylo and serve him, Kylo exhibited so much care for Armitage as well. He could not control Kylo, not truly – but Kylo was suited for his needs in every sense. The two of them played different games of dominance. They could never be in competition, as far as Armitage could see. They could only complement each other’s natures. He had known that from their first encounter but it seemed truer than it had then, because he had lived it.

Kylo had Armitage hopelessly seduced, and Armitage felt nothing but a dreamy ecstasy about it.

He found himself sitting up, but slowly, for he was still exhausted and half-asleep. Given all of Kylo’s looking at Armitage and heaps of praise about his appearance, Armitage never quite _looked_ at him in the same way. He felt as though he never had the chance to. How could he do it while Kylo could see him and have the satisfaction of knowing that Armitage wanted to look? How could he expose himself as an animal with desires? He thought, privately, that Kylo was attractive. He knew Kylo knew it. But he could never, while Kylo was conscious of it, let himself dwell on it. He had a long way to go toward true surrender, he thought, just like Kylo had a long way to go in achieving what Armitage wanted from a submissive partner. Tonight had been another game, one of many that would lead them to the real thing. Armitage was no more a complete whore than Kylo was useless. He was a _virgin_. He could barely fit one finger. He squealed all the while when Kylo ate him out. A “complete whore” would take such things in stride, lay back and let stimulation wash over and off of him. He wanted to laugh at the both of them while he had the privacy, but he managed only one staccato exhalation, soundless except as a breath. He was tired.

Armitage had to start down the road to total surrender somewhere, though, and it would hurt nothing to look at Kylo while he was sleeping naked right next to him.

So while Kylo slept, Armitage sat up and watched him, looking at his uncovered form. Soft flesh was layered over hard muscle. Armitage had felt both, and he admired how Kylo was built. In the low light, his skin shone pale. He looked at the pattern of moles travelling from his face and across is torso, then back up as he took stock of each of his scars. They had mended but would never disappear. The large one, from the bowcaster. Small ones, little nicks and tears from years of training and reckless self-endangerment. Finally, the long one, the one the girl gave him. His eyes traced it up from Kylo’s pectoral, over the vulnerable skin of his throat, and up to his face where it crossed between his eyes and ended.

He wondered what had happened on Starkiller Base. Obviously, Kylo lost a duel against the scavenger girl as a result of taking a prior injury, but Kylo never showed him the memory. Armitage would not ask. Remembering it alone must have been embarrassing enough for Kylo. Armitage remembered finding him lying in the snow and feeling his stomach turn at the sight of so much blood. He had to look at anything and everything else while the Stormtroopers loaded him onto a hovergurney. The girl must have slashed downward. An upward slash would probably have cut deeper into the underside of his jaw and produced more blood, although Armitage could not say one way or another with certainty. He was not a medic.

He hated the girl for attempting to mar that face. It did no lasting damage, and Armitage barely noticed the scar until he took the time to look at it. But the idea that someone would take a weapon to Kylo’s face infuriated him now that he had kissed it, and the idea that she would then lure him into his pursuit of her -

Wait.

_WAIT_.

In sudden wide-eyed clarity, he knew the answer to Kylo’s question of why he had always been right. It lay right there on his face the whole time. Armitage’s eyes passed over it more times than he could count. He had no need to write it down. There was no chance of forgetting the answer. It changed everything.

He pressed his palm over Kylo’s heart and felt it beat. He saw his jugular vein pulsing in the side of his neck. With something approaching fondness he thought of all the ways he could kill him, if he weren’t checked by the thought of losing him forever. He could smother him with one of the pillows. He could retrieve the blaster from his bedside table. He could slit the jugular vein and watch him bleed out… it invited him…

He pressed his lips over it and held them there until sleep came to him again.

 

Edrison Peavey had had quite enough.

The number of old Imperial loyalists on the _Finalizer_ and in the First Order at large underwent a most curious and disturbing feat of what he could only call mathematical distortion. It seemed to dwindle exponentially despite the relatively low portion of them that had been lost in the recent frenzy of battles on planets and in the stars between the First Order and the insurgent scum of the Resistance. Moden Canady’s loss had been felt, although he did not reside on the _Finalizer_. When the gaggle of them sat around a table in the officer’s dining area, exchanging silent looks, the mood of quiet desperation set into Peavey’s spirit. They had received no recent orders from High Command – except for their two least favorite two of its members.

The loss he felt the most was that of Brendol Hux despite the man being both a complete maniac and also ten years gone. Brendol would be able to get Armitage in line. The twerp needed a strong hand across his face. Twice. From his father, who conditioned him into obedience for want of his father’s love, not from Snoke who only conditioned him into groveling for fear of his master’s wrath. Peavey knew about Armitage’s childhood, for lack of a better word. He felt no pity for the brat. If it weren’t for Armitage’s new _boyfriend_ , Peavey or anyone else could have put him in his place personally and wrested control of the First Order back into stronger, steadier hands.

But Armitage had a new boyfriend. Everyone knew what Armitage was. It was easy enough to tell, and easy enough for Peavey and his ilk to affirm their suspicions to each other in muttered brevities, then voice their disgust at guffawing, shuddering length. They should have known what Kylo Ren was, too, should have known there was something more than single-note hatred in the tension between them. For how long had it been going on, right under the Supreme Leader’s nose? Peavey didn’t believe that story about the Resistance member killing Supreme Leader Snoke. Unthinkable. Ren committed the highest treason, and he did it for his little man-wife. Then he took the throne for himself and he eliminated the rules that made the First Order a bastion of _order,_ as the name stated it should be, by introducing all the impurities he would allow into it. It all made such perfect sense now. Ren and Armitage had been using them all for years. There was no doubt in his mind.

Peavey wanted to vomit. His clique of holdouts to the _true_ First Order sat in the otherwise empty dining hall, at a table which had never seemed so flimsy and cheap before. Brendol used to entertain them in his opulent quarters. Armitage snubbed them. This was what they were reduced to under the reign of these smirking, deviant upstarts.

“Right,” said Edrison Peavey, looking at each of the others in turn. “I’m going to that red-headed headcase’s quarters to set things straight.”

“It’s after 200 hours, Captain,” one of them pointed out. They had been there all night, from the time Peavey related the story of seeing Armitage and Ren all gussied up and psychologically mere ticks away from tearing each other’s ridiculous clothes off. Later, the party had returned from Canto Bight, and word of the two of them running back to Armitage’s quarters like a pair of giggling teenagers on some rural planet where teenagers had nothing better to do got around the _Finalizer_ fast.

“I don’t care,” said Peavey. “I must do it now.” Or he would lose the will. “I’m going to contact High Command. The real High Command, not those two.” He was never supposed to do this, as a Captain, but he would endure the consequences for the greater good. “Someone’s got to take a stand.”

“Do you want us to go with you?” a fellow Captain asked dully, knowing that Peavey would say no.

“No,” said Peavey. He got up. Even if Kylo Ren had his magic tricks, even if those two idiots could never be reasoned with, High Command had to listen to him. He had no illusions about what High Command really was. He also knew that getting them to stop nose-blasting for two minutes and _listen_ to someone talk about the First Order’s business was his only chance of saving it. Armitage would listen to High Command. They knew Brendol better than Peavey had. They could control him as Brendol did, in theory. Ren would fall in step behind Armitage. There was no other way.

Peavey went to the refresher and splashed cold water on his face. He arrived at Armitage’s quarters at almost 300 hours. He would rouse them from sleep if needed. Armitage never slept much. He could get to him while Ren was unavailable to protect him. But they were not asleep. He could hear them from the door. Armitage was laughing. Peavey felt dread in his gut, but pressed the buzzer. The laughter stopped.

“Who’s at the door?” Armitage.

“It’s Peavey.” Ren.

“What time is it?”

“About 300 hours, I think.”

“What the Hell does Peavey want at 300 – hic! – hours?”

“He wants to tell us off. He thinks he can scare you.”

“With _you_ here?”

“He thought he could catch you while your lover was sleeping. He thinks we’re lovers.”

Peavey _boiled_.

“Hm.” Armitage paused. “Let him in, I guess. You can do that, right? Let’s deal with him. The sooner the better.”

The door slid open, presumably of Ren’s bidding. Peavey had not fully entered the room when he saw one of the most unnerving things he had ever seen. Armitage Hux was draped across Kylo Ren’s lap. Ren was shirtless, wearing only a pair of loose black pants. His hair looked like someone had been running fingers through it. His lips were redder than Peavey remembered. His lightsaber waited on the low table before Armitage’s couch. When Ren looked up at their visitor, Peavey noticed that his hand inched in the direction he would need to hold it to summon the weapon to him and fight if needed – but it was not needed.

Armitage wore nothing but a silky black robe and a healthy flush. The robe was open to the waist and exposed one delicate, bony shoulder and the soft flesh of his chest. His skin bore several red and purple marks, roughly the size of Ren’s mouth. Ren had his arms around him, and in his hands Armitage had a datapad nearly as wide as his chest and bottle of sparkling Naboo wine, half-empty. Armitage likely had no idea what it was. He had no sense of culture. No sense of class.

“You’re drunk,” said Peavey.

Armitage Hux laughed. Edrison Peavey felt his will to live draining. Armitage drained it just like his ludicrous Starkiller contraption had… well, killed stars. Peavey's and Ren’s eyes met. “State your business,” said Ren.

Peavey knew that Ren already knew his business. Instead of stating it to Ren, who already knew, or to Armitage, who was a useless lush, he took his own com and tried to directly contact High Command on board the _Eclipse_ without their approval. He would tell High Command about everything, including Ren and Armitage’s relationship. He would start an investigation into Snoke’s death. There could be a witness. There could be untouched security footage. There could be _hope_.

“This is Captain Audacious of the Star Dreadnaught _Eclipse_. To whom am I speaking?”

Captain Peavey had never heard of a Captain Audacious. She sounded young. Inappropriately young. Peavey didn’t want to talk to anyone _young_ , not ever again. She called herself a Captain, but she sounded more like a communications operator or a hospitality worker. Too sweet. Too pleasant for a Captain. His hope dwindled at the sound of her voice.

“This is Captain Peavey, of the Star Destroyer _Finalizer_ ,” he told her. “I am here with General Hux – ” He hated calling Armitage _General Hux_. “ – and… _Supreme Leader Ren_.” He did not know which he hated saying more. “Connect me to High Command immediately.”

There came from his com a long pause. It lasted long enough that Armitage had time to take another sip from the bottle of wine, frown at it, decide that enough was enough, and put it on his table without a coaster. Ren smirked.

“I’m sorry, but High Command is not available at this time,” said Captain Audacious. “I will relay any message you wish delivered to High Command at the first available opportunity.”

Audacious of her, indeed, thought Peavey, frowning and gripping his com. “I am Captian Peavey of the _Finalizer_ and this is urgent. Wake them up.”

“High Command is currently unavailable, but I will relay any message you wish me to deliver at the first available opportunity.”

Armitage _giggled_ against Ren’s chest. Peavey began to panic. Something was very wrong. “I am a Captain!”

“I too am a Captain.”

“I’m a _real_ Captain.”

“I am also a _real_ Captain,” said Audacious, her politesse waning.

“Then why haven’t I ever heard of you?” Peavey scoffed.

“I was promoted by _Grand Marshal_ Hux himself,” she said. “And I have had just about a-damn-nuff of this conversation, Edrison Peavey.”

Armitage perked up at the mention of himself. “Audacious!” he said, practically cheering. “I remember you!”

“Hello, Grand Marshal,” she responded, her exchange with Peavey forgotten. “You sound… like you’re in a good mood.” She did not need to say _a suspiciously good mood_.

“I sent a delivery shuttle out with your armor!” said Armitage. “All of your measurements were in the system. I hope you appreciate it.”

“I’m sure I will.” _Or else_.

Evidently, Ren had promoted his _honey_ to the highest rank in the First Order’s chain of command short of himself and nobody told Peavey about it. Outrageous! He could have crushed the com in his fist. He hung up on the Audacious bitch and attempted desperate measures: the personal coms of several members of High Command, most of which he was not meant to have.

Disconnected.

Disconnected.

Unavailable.

Out of battery.

Disconnected.

Not one of them answered. None of his memos could be delivered. He felt his hands start to shake. Witnesses and security footage might not matter anymore. He looked up at the two conspirators canoodling on the ice-blue couch, feeling a similarly icy chill.

“Armitage,” said Ren. “Would you like to know what this man thinks of you?”

“I don’t especially care to, no,” Armitage drawled, and kissed Ren on the cheek. “I’d rather he leave and neither of us ever see him again.”

“It’s only that he wants to tell High Command about us,” Ren explained. “He always thought you wouldn’t last, once the First Order had command of the Galaxy. He thought you’d be pushed aside in favor of someone more… stable, in his mind.”

“Oh, did he? Hm.”

“He and the others like him never saw you as a threat before.” Ren sounded more amused than like he wanted to warn Armitage. He must not have seen any need to. “They saw you as a child, as a nuisance they could manipulate and then discard. Just like High Command did. Nobody ever thought that the two of us could manage to work together… but they see us as more now…”

They kissed. Peavey watched them, like some denizen of that same backwater planet as held the giggling teenagers gawks at two ships colliding in the planet’s atmosphere. He suddenly felt very cold and very heavy. These two and their carnality threatened the Order. No, more than threatened. It was too late, and Peavey knew it. They had usurped the Order and made it their tool, and they basked in their sins. Armitage got off of Ren’s lap.

“Can you walk?” asked Ren.

“Yes, I’m alright. Thank you, Kylo.”

Peavey thought that Ren’s proper name sounded revolting coming from Armitage. Too soft. Gooey. When it touched his ear he wanted to scream and shoot it with his blaster. Not to slap it away, because if he did it would leave a sticky residue on his skin. But he could blast it and stomp the remains under his boot and feel immense satisfaction from doing so. If anyone ever said _Edrison_ to him in that tone of voice he would space them.

Armitage retrieved one of his small officer’s mugs and what Peavey recognized as a suicide pill. Armitage had to hunt in his chest of drawers for the latter and rip open a small pasteboard box containing exactly one tablet – the only amount anyone should ever need – which he had put there when he moved in years ago and never thought of again until 300 hours during this specific cycle. The uncoated, round pill clinked against the plastoid of the mug. Armitage picked up the bottle of wine. He spilled a dash onto his table, but he poured enough into the mug to fill it over halfway. He turned his back and adjusted his robe before crossing the room to over the mug to Peavey.

It sizzled. The dark grey capsule in the bottom had bubbles clinging to every bit of its surface, like a dead animal covered in swarming hive-insects.

“I’ve been drinking this wine all night,” said Armitage. “It’s delicious. Take it. I don’t think the taste will be changed by my addition, and it will help you sleep after everything you’ve endured during this meeting. I know this must be a difficult time for you, Captain.”

Peavey watched his own hand reach out and take the mug. He could not be entirely certain if he lifted it himself, or if Kylo Ren moved him. Armitage’s voice was the only thing he could hear besides a ringing in his ears. The voice sounded mockingly tender, a parody of the tone he used to address his lover. Ren remained seated on the couch watching them like a beast trained to attack Armitage’s enemies on command or at the slightest sign of Armitage’s need.

"Whatever you do, _don't_ call him Edrison," said Kylo. "He'll _hate_ that."

“You may give this matter as much thought as you need tonight,” said Armitage. He slurred slightly, but maintained his characteristic pace of speech. “If you wish, we can transfer you to a new position. You’ll never have to see myself or the Supreme Leader again – except in the rare event that we visit the manufacturing facility where you’ll be a supervisor.” We. Not one of them. Both of them. They would never separate again. Armitage said it without a thought. They were so sickeningly, exclusively, egotistically _together_. “Continue to use your military expertise here, with us, or not at all. Continue in your current life, take a new one…” Armitage looked down at the mug for a moment. “…or the First Order excuses you. But know this, _Edrison_ – I know. I always know. I know everything, my eyes and ears are everywhere and they’ll accompany you wherever you decide to go and my most loyal men will know they don’t need my permission to end you. The choice is yours. Consider it.”

Peavey too looked at the mug. The pill had dissolved completely. He had no idea what to think or do. He had not made a decision, but he took the mug with him as he departed.

Once he was gone, Armitage returned to Kylo’s side. The datapad with its blueprints glowed from his table, safely separated from the small spill of wine. It would dry before it leaked across the surface to touch it, if it moved at all. He kissed Kylo on the mouth, and forgot all about Edrison Peavey and his sort before they parted.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” said Kylo, because Armitage was drunk and would not deflect. “I love you. I love so much about you that I haven’t told you I love.”

But Armitage kissed him again and pulled himself back into Kylo’s lap to straddle him.

“Mm – stop. Armitage, stop. You’re drunk. We can’t.”

“Why can’t we do it again?” Armitage scowled.

“Because you’re drunk,” said Kylo.

“Why can’t we build another Starkiller Base?” Armitage clarified.

“Because we don’t want to spend the money,” Kylo explained, trying not to smile too broadly. “Even with all the costs we’ll cut from not having to provide anyone with profit. We need our resources elsewhere.”

“They’ll know, though.” Armitage sat up and looked at him with worry. “They’ll know we’ve only built a fake one.”

“No, they won’t,” said Kylo. “The Resistance expects another Starkiller Base. The Empire built another Death Star. We’ll make the Galaxy think it was your idea, that you’re really the one pulling my strings, and that you wanted another Starkiller Base. We’ll let them think that on the day of our wedding, it’s undefended. They’ll have to try to destroy it. Then, we ambush them, because we will have gotten married long before that and the broadcast we send across the Galaxy won’t be live, as we’ll pretend it is. It will work. Audacious will get us a planet. You sent her orders, right?”

Armitage nodded vigorously. “With her armor. All the specifications…” That word was hard to say. “…are in the accompanying file.”

“Good,” said Kylo. “So when she gets her armor, she’ll – ”

“Kylo!” Armitage gasped and ran his finger over Kylo’s long gash of a scar. “Kylo, I know why you’ve always been right!”

Kylo had not expected to ever hear the answer to the assignment he gave Armitage while they were in medbay. He gave up two days later when he remembered giving it to him, and thought that it seemed stupid in hindsight. But Armitage had an answer for him, and he sounded excited to tell him.

“Please,” said Kylo.

“It’s not exactly why you’ve always been right, but I think definitely the answer you need.”

“I’m listening, either way.”

“When you were a child,” Armitage explained. “Your brain got confused. When you were growing up, and it was still growing and forming and your memories were being written into it. It came to associate loving someone with them hurting you. That’s why.”

Kylo looked at him in silence for a long time. They nodded in unspoken understanding. “Go on,” said Kylo, intrigued.

“Your parents neglected you,” Armitage said bluntly. “They prioritized everything else over you. But you loved them. You still love your mother, you want to save her. I respect that, Kylo, I do. I’ll help you.”

“Thank you,” said Kylo, still studying his face.

“You loved them but they didn’t love you in the same way. They hurt you. That was the lesson you learned. Your uncle was the same way. Snoke… you didn’t love him, but you wanted him to approve of you.”

“I wanted _someone_ to approve of me,” said Kylo.

“Yes!” said Armitage. “Nobody cared for you properly, you gorgeous, miserable bastard. And then, Kylo… Kylo, don’t you think it’s strange that you chased after that girl after she cut your face open? Doesn’t that strike you as wrong?”

They were silent for a longer time. Everything Armitage said up to that point had occurred to Kylo at one point or another, but not the final sentence. His eyes went wide. Armitage bent and kissed the scar where it crossed down his neck.

“She did,” Kylo finally said. “She gave me the scar, and I wanted her more after that.”

“And,” said Armitage. “I think that’s why you hurt me.”

Kylo could not respond.

“You thought it would make me love you,” said Armitage, smiling one of his smiles that looked like a frown. Kylo could see how pleased he was with his discovery.

Armitage smoothed Kylo’s hair. Kylo bit his lip. He thought three things: first, that Armitage was wrong about the very last part. He had hurt Armitage because he was frustrated with his insolence and lack of cooperation, hated Armitage for his perceived rejection, and was angrier at the whole of existence than he had ever been in his life. He always turned to destruction in his rage. It made him feel like he could control _something_ outside of whatever set him off. It staved off the gnawing sense of inadequacy that he had felt for so long, that tore chunks out of him with razor-sharp teeth when he failed enough to become angry. It was why, on Crait, he would have stood by and not saved his mother, but now, with a level head, knew that he must save her and never hurt Armitage again. He needed them both.

The second thing he thought was that everything Armitage said was true of Armitage himself. He wanted Brendol’s love so much that part of him could lie to himself about its existence, and received only pain and contempt. Kylo knew that he could probably never say that to Armitage. It had been true of Kylo, to an extent. He wanted his family to love him too. Every child wanted. Not every child received.

In the midst of all this pondering glared the fact that he and Armitage spent five years hurting each other as much as they could while repressing their mutual attraction.

And third, it troubled him that Armitage never seemed to care much about everything that Kylo had done to him, but that was his decision to make, not Kylo’s.

But there was absolutely no sense in trying to tell Armitage any of this while he was drunk.

“Thank you,” Kylo said instead. The idea of Rey slicing his face with Grandfather’s lightsaber and his following chase stuck with him the most. He felt thankful that they had closed the unwanted connection between them.

He gave Armitage a chaste kiss on the lips, smiled without restraint, then spoke again:

“Armitage. I think I understand you now. I even understand why you tried to re-create what your father did to you. I tried to do the same thing, when you told me I was nothing.”

“You’re _not_ nothing,” Armitage cut in.

“I know,” said Kylo. “Don’t worry, I know. And I know why you’ve tried to repeat the cycle Brendol locked you in. You found it again in Snoke… and then you found it again in me, however briefly. I know there’s nothing that I can say or do to make you fall in love with me. I did try to find something, some key that would unlock you, but I always knew. Love isn’t like that, especially not for someone like you. I can’t do or say anything to make it happen, but I can see inside you, Armitage. You do have feelings, no matter what you say or believe. I’ve sensed them. I know the beginnings of the same feelings I have are there. If I protect them and feed them, they’ll grow. I can wait. I’ll work with you. I’ll be patient. You won’t have to say it when you start to feel the same way as I do. I’ll know when it happens… even if you don’t.”

Armitage took a deep breath. He could not answer him. It was too much. But he let his body fall against Kylo’s and be held with his face to Kylo’s shoulder. Kylo could smell the wine on him and his damp hair, worn soft all evening and night.

“I am made of love,” said Kylo. “And I will pour love into you until you learn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~This is the end of what I am calling Act One.~~
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> ~~I would like to take a moment to thank you for reading this far, and I would like to tell you some possible ways I think I might proceed with this story.~~
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> ~~I will now take a break. My original plan was one chapter a month. I am considerably ahead, but this production schedule is kind of ridiculous, so I am going to take a break now. I guess I can't make you any promises, but do know that I have every intention of writing a second act. I don't know how long it will end up being. I don't know how long the break will end up being, but I expect between two and four weeks before I resume production.~~
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> ~~I may have to write all of it before I post any of it. I may post it on a schedule or all at once - do not put the latter past me. I have pulled similar stunts.~~
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>   ~~I intend to respond to all comments as I have done so far. I will do my best to answer any questions you may have.~~
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> ~~Thank you very much.~~
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> Ayyyyy I did it let's fuckin' gooooo!


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to keep these tags cleaned up, please bear with me.
> 
> This chapter contains a past scene of Brendol terrorizing a teenage Armitage about his homosexuality. You have been warned.

_…click, click, click, click, click…_

The _Horizon_ belonged to him. It belonged to its crew, because all of them would live in it. It belonged to Kylo Ren, because he would also live in it and would rule the Order with him from it. But it belonged to Armitage Hux most of all, because in addition to both of those qualifications, he had designed it and overseen construction.

_…click, click, click, click, click…_

Armitage Hux was thirty-five years old. He beamed uncontrollably as he looked at the unmarred surfaces of the ship’s interior. They shone as pristine as his white uniform.

_…click, click, click, click, click…_

The sound of his boots pounding on the floor echoed faintly down the halls. One by one, automatic doors slid open to let him pass. The ship was not manned – only himself, the core of the medical staff, and one other man were allowed on board for the next three days. In three cycles, the _Horizon_ would have its permanent residents. In two cycles, it would serve as the venue for the most important ceremonial transferences of power in Galactic history. Tomorrow, the officers, Grand Marshal included, would have their possessions moved on board. But today, Armitage had matters to attend to neither classifiable as business nor pleasure. His task was unrelated to the First Order’s work, private, personal, and yet essential to it. Its happening changed fates. He had not seen Kylo Ren for two weeks, and was going to see him now. In two days, he would marry him.

_…click, click, click, click, click…_

_“Hate keeps me young. The spirit of youth fuels the body of the First Order. To hate is not weakness, my companions – hatred is not a poison that will rot you from the inside out. This is a lie many of you have been told. Complacency and acceptance of ruin, of waste, of injustice, and of mediocrity are the poison that was forced into your veins! Purge yourself in the fires of righteous hatred! For to love a thing is to hate its opposite! To love the First Order is to hate all that would oppose it!”_

Armitage’s own words came back to him as he recalled the half-year of speeches between the death of Snoke and the present. No longer was the last ruler of the First Order _Supreme Leader Snoke_ in his mind. Armitage was free of any reverence, fear, or other shade of respect he ever held for such a repulsive _being_. There was, and had only ever been, one true Supreme Leader waiting to rise. Even if _he_ , Armitage’s exquisite _he_ , should abdicate to a younger heir of his choosing in the future, to Armitage that title could only ever belong to one man again.

_“The Force is not something for sentient beings to fear. We can think. We can feel. We can have ambitions, goals, desires, passions – and we can have fears, that’s natural, but the Force, like any other resource, is for those of us who are gifted in it to use to achieve our goals, improve ourselves, and lift others up with us. Like the planets and systems that bore us and the stars that give us life, we must respect it. But the Force is nothing to fear. It is something to be known.”_

Every dissident voice silenced by Kylo Ren, be it in the open as an example to any who would listen or clandestine in the dark to quiet his foes discretely, be it by his hand or his lightsaber or the men he commanded, be it with the surface of a planet beneath his boots or the controls of his TIE Silencer in his hands – every dissident voice silenced by Kylo Ren came out of a mouth that no longer needed feeding.

Kylo had made more than a few speeches of his own, although he preferred the term “addresses”. Armitage made speeches, Kylo said, and Kylo gave addresses. Armitage would call them a series of informative lectures regarding the nature of the Force. Prior to, during, and after the… _series of events_ that he had yet to give a title to Armitage knew nothing of the Force. He refused to allow Ren’s wizardry and nonsense to impress him. But Kylo since insisted on teaching him what Armitage was capable of learning, and now Armitage had at least a theoretical understanding. He took to factual knowledge of the thing he had dismissed with greater readiness than he took to pushups, meditation, or Kylo’s attempts to hand the Darksaber back to him. All of that simply was not going to happen. Never. But it was unusual and worthy of observation, he thought, that things he had understood before still held less interest to him than Kylo’s views on the function and purpose of the invisible Force directing and binding all of existence.

If they were to find their children, said Kylo, their birth parents had to understand them. This was the purpose of the addresses on the subject of the Force. As a result of the addresses and his reputation, many people from an array of backgrounds revered Kylo Ren as something like a deity. His cult grew. He was the heir who surpassed Darth Vader, but who spoke of hope, security, and their future. He had dethroned the previous Supreme Leader, who never spoke of such things (the lie about the girl would only have made Kylo look weak), or indeed of anything at all to his subjects.

_“Grand Marshal, why are you and the Supreme Leader getting married?”_

_Armitage looked over the rim of his mug at the little recruit who asked him the question, as well as the rest of the child’s unit, who awaited his answer. Three days a week he took his afternoon tea in the company of some of his youngest future Stormtroopers. They loved trying to stump him with the toughest questions their young minds could muster. They also loved that he was never stumped._

_“Because we’ve decided to marry each other,” said Armitage, smirking._

_“Right,” said the child. “But… why did you decide to marry each other?”_

_Armitage gathered his thoughts for two seconds, longer than he needed to fire back answers in response to almost all other questions from children. Even a pause from the Grand Marshal was a victory that warranted the child’s pride. “Because I decided he was worthy to marry me, and he decided I was worthy to marry him.”_

_“Why is he worthy to marry you?”_

_“He’s the Supreme Leader,” Armitage pointed out. While true, Armitage would marry Kylo for different reasons that he could not explain to a child, and the child quickly accepted this reason because to argue against it would approach blasphemy._

_“Why are you worthy to marry him?”_

_The child received the expanse of a five-second pause from Armitage. “Why wouldn’t I be?”_

_Another child cut in. “Lieutenant Grisham says it’s a waste of men!”_

_“Does she!” said Armitage. “Then she’s being naughty, and I shall refer her for immediate disciplinary action! Thank you for your diligence, honesty, and loyalty to your Supreme Leader, soldier.”_

_…click, click, click, click, click…_

Armitage had one hand clenched into a fist at his side, not out of anger, but out of determination, and as an attempted to hold his excitement tightly and not let it escape his control and move his body with it. He wanted to pause the clicking of his boots and press his back to the wall, to feel the weight of his body supported by his creation. One existence in the mazes of his making. One spark of awareness in a machine that would become self-sufficient through that spark of his awareness and the awareness of others. He and the ship were two parts of something bigger than either of them, something so much greater than the sum of its parts, and yet Armitage _was_ the greater thing himself. He and Kylo Ren.

But the incarnate god that Armitage had bound and waiting for him did not like to wait.

_“The disparity of wealth allowed by the Resistance will be worn away. It is happening now. Will the luxuries of Cantonica, the highest echelons of gross excess and decadence, survive the ascendance of the First Order? No. Do you want them to? Not if you value your right to live your life well, righteously, cleanly, and with purpose. Not if you value the same right of your families, your friends, the brethren of your homeworld, or the Galaxy that unites us all as one family! The way ahead may be, at times, difficult. You may grow tired. You may grow hungry, weary, and weak. But if you never lose sight of your enemies, including the hated weakness within yourself, these ills will seem as nothing to you! You will be part of something greater than yourself! My Stormtroopers! Your souls are mixed with stardust! You are called by your birth to a higher purpose! Cast off your small, selfish, materialistic ego! Rise up, and become who you were meant to be!”_

The people his message reached were not like him. They were small parts of the greater body. They were little. They were common. Kylo Ren was a _god_. Armitage would stand before them as the consort of a god in two cycles. What that made him, he still did not have a name for.

_…click, click, click, click, click, click._

He arrived at his destination.

The lights overhead illuminated the hallway so well that he could see himself in the smooth surface of the door. Armitage saw all of his features clearly, despite the charcoal-colored plastoid casting them in shadow. He laughed at himself. What a fool he was, just before they went to Canto Bight, to look in the mirror and think that he would never look that beautiful again, or that he would never wear anything as beautiful as the disguise of an engineering student disguised as a prostitute again. He had never looked more radiant and alive than he did now – as himself, embarking on his third sleepless cycle, driven by his devotion to his work and his Supreme Leader.

He punched three codes that only he and Kylo Ren knew from memory into the pad next to the door of the throne room. The medical staff could access them if dire need arose, but they had their orders not to open the memorandum sent by Armitage earlier in the cycle unless alerted to such. Thirty digits in all, which he had rehearsed dozens of times, flew from his white-gloved fingertips. The light below the keypad turned from red to green. The door slid silently open.

Armitage knew what he would see, but his breath caught in his chest, just as it had when he entered the _Horizon_ for the first time. Here, in his creation’s heart, he saw the heart of his motivation for building it in the form of another human being. Armitage had come to him for release which would renew his spirit. He had been awake for two cycles and a few additional hours. With Kylo’s help, he could work for longer.

Kylo was kneeling in the center of the room on a mat large enough to hold him and several tools of Armitage’s lesser-known trade. The thick mat protected Armitage’s possessions from the indignity of waiting for him on the floor (the flogs, the electrical wand, the paddle, the lubricant, and a spreader bar behind him as of yet unused) and from pain from prolonged weight held on the joints against an unyielding surface (Kylo). A chain climbed from the binders holding his wrists together behind his back up to the dizzying heights of the ceiling. They would not stay there for long. Rope dug into the flesh of his thighs where it bound them to his calves.

He had done all of this himself, with the Force, and waited for Armitage.

The gag in Kylo’s mouth prevented speech, but he made no attempts to speak. Armitage felt the sudden twinge of pleasure inside of him. He could not know if he simply moved in a way that made the plug he put in when he boarded the ship touch him _just_ right, or if Kylo did that himself. For Kylo’s sake, Armitage hoped he never found proof of the latter, or of any other of a number of similar small incidents over the past months having the same cause. The ropes fell away from Kylo’s legs with a few tugs to the knots. He knelt to take up the wide paddle from its resting place beside Kylo’s knee.

“Raise up.”

Kylo rose up onto his knees. When Armitage swatted him on the behind, he made sure to hit him in the middle, over the base of his own plug. Kylo’s was smaller, but it vibrated. Armitage set the vibrations to the highest setting when he boarded the _Horizon_. Kylo’s length ached and leaked, Armitage could see it, shameless and almost flaunting Kylo’s physical neediness. But he should have nothing to complain about. The ones they used to train Kylo had never been as big as Armitage’s and never would be. Certainly not as big as the one Armitage had in now, because _he_ had to prepare for their wedding night.

“As I was on my way here,” said Armitage, casually. “Traversing the halls of my ship… truly magnificent, is it not?”

He took Kylo by the back of his hair and forced him to nod.

“Mm-hm…”

“I wanted to stop and bask in what I’ve created. I wanted to press my back to the wall of the ship and feel as though I was connected to it. Fortunately, I didn’t. I might have been distracted. I expect you knew my every move. You would have been here, seething with lust and jealousy over a spaceship while I was too distracted by pleasuring myself outside.”

He knew that Kylo would not seethe with jealousy, only annoyance. The paddle tapped against any and every bit of pale flesh on Kylo’s rump and thighs which to Armitage appeared the least pink moment to moment. This was everything that Kylo hated: the sweet tone of Armitage’s voice, the soft taps that could only caught a fleeting second of a sting, the vibrations, and the “reassuring” hand on his shoulder. “If I charged in here and started beating you, you’d cry,” he explained. “Not the right way, either. You used to cry, didn’t you, Kylo… nobody enjoyed that…”

He pushed dampening hair from Kylo’s neck and kissed it. Kylo shivered and drew down his head, as if from an electrical shock – which might have been caused in part by looking at the wand before him which he knew would deliver him electrical shocks in a few moments. The thing could deliver enough voltage to render an adult human man unconscious, but that man would not be Kylo.

“You’re afraid of a little kiss?” Armitage all but cooed, and gave him another one on the cheek. Kylo did not wince the second time, but tried to reach for a real kiss either in spite of his gag or having let it slip his mind. He disgusted Armitage at times, and yet it was in those times of disgust at Kylo’s desperate sentimentality even in pain and bonds that endeared him. A kiss would have ruined everything this early. Armitage had yet to pinpoint why. He could kiss Kylo when he was good and wrecked and his ability to lure Armitage into immediate aftercare was incapacitated.

After Kylo’s upper legs and behind were flushed deep pink, Armitage ordered him to stand. The binders and chain kept his wrists restrained behind his back. The chain was locked in place overhead, not to keep Kylo from the privilege of falling, but so that he could let himself hang from it without caution.

Armitage locked the spreader bar around his ankles. He knelt until Kylo looked down, confused, and saw him with his mouth inches from his cock. Pre-cum almost dripped onto the white uniform. What punishment would Kylo endure if it did, even by no fault of his own and even if the uniform would doubtless require laundering anyway? Armitage did not always play fair – not that Kylo _objected_ to occasional flights of sadistic fancy in which he could not win, because they still ended with praise and kisses. But Armitage licked it away and snickered at the shake of Kylo’s head. He had told him so many times that he would never suck his cock, and he knew he would never go through with it… but each time Kylo was tied up, the thing looked more and more appealing. It tempted him. The latest stimulant shot had yet to quite kick in, he thought, because he kept staring at it in the foolhardy manner he never looked at Kylo with except when hovering above the void of slumber or emerging out of it. Armitage pulled himself from the brief haze to take up the electrical wand and one of Kylo’s most admired companions: the flog.

He circled him. Kylo had willingly withdrawn from Armitage’s mind. If Armitage stood behind him, Kylo did not know if the dull straps of leather or the sparks of pain would snap against his body. The tails traced crossing lines over the fleshier parts of him. Armitage noted with his usual satisfaction how he could make them shake with impact. Kylo took blows to the chest almost with gratitude. Armitage saw him fighting with himself not to turn away, saw his jaw working around the gag and the tears of effort and pain clinging to his lashes, and as Armitage struck him harder he seemed to embrace it. The tails, folded and flicked over his nipples, elicited Kylo grinding his hips back against nothing.

Even the shocks, when Armitage dragged the tip of the wand in loops around them, were welcomed. Armitage pulled it across his stomach and to his thighs to see if Kylo would flinch when it got too close to his dick. They had never talked about this. Armitage did not know if Kylo wanted it, or if he trusted him not to do it.

“Don’t move,” he warned. The wand hovered between Kylo’s shaking inner thighs. Armitage tucked the flog over his shoulder and wrapped a gloved hand around Kylo. He could shock him. The white-hot jolt would send him reeling and make his muffled screams echo through the throne room. Armitage squeezed. Kylo whimpered.

“Don’t cum, either…”

“Mm-mmm…!” Kylo shook his head.

“Ohh…” Armitage crooned in mock sympathy. The wand touched Kylo’s thigh just below his hanging sac. “I see… you want me to stop touching you… You don’t think you’re strong enough to hold back, do you? Hm…” He saw the muscles in Kylo’s arms knotting and straining. His fists were clenching behind his back. The gloved fingers stroked up Kylo’s length, lifted, touched the base firmly, then ghosted back up to the tip. “You’re pathetic when you put yourself on this level. Without the crutch of your abilities propping you up, giving an overgrown child the _disguise_ of a leader, this would be your entire life… that throne would belong only to me…”

The sparks flew against Kylo’s legs, first the inner thigh, then the outer thigh, then up across his stomach and rear. His chest heaved. The whimpers around his gag became cries of distress, because Armitage’s hand never left his cock and the honeyed words of a life chained naked at an Emperor’s feet never stopped flowing into his ears. Armitage finally let him go.

“Is that what you want, Kylo?” Armitage asked. The wand fell harmlessly to the mat at his feet, switched off. Armitage kissed Kylo’s lower lip where it stretched around his gag.

“Mm-hm…”

“If I allow you to speak, will you speak appropriately?”

Kylo nodded. Armitage reached around him and unlatched the clasp from between wet locks of hair. Armitage waited for Kylo to speak, but Kylo waited to be spoken to. Armitage smiled his approval.

“How are you feeling, Kylo?”

“I’m so grateful to you, Sir…”

Armitage adored the hazy look in his eyes and the full flush on his face and neck, but he immediately knew that Kylo needed a drink. “Do you need water?”

“Yes, Sir, please…”

Armitage gave him a parting kiss on the forehead and fetched one of several thermoses of water from behind the throne – their throne. He took a long drink from one (he had, admittedly, not tended to his own needs as well as he could have, but stims made neglecting them so easy and of little consequence) and then held it to Kylo’s lips. “Easy… small draughts… you did so well with your instructions, Kylo, I’m very pleased with you…”

Between the two of them (but mostly Kylo), they soon drained the thermos. Armitage knew that the amount of water Kylo drank was not enough to replenish him, but it would be enough to see him through to the end of the scene and he knew better than to give him too much water before they finished.

“Thank you, Sir.”

“You _should_ be grateful to me,” said Armitage, who found himself gazing into Kylo’s eyes.

“I am, Sir.”

“Why are you grateful to me?” he asked.

“Because you’ve given me so much,” said Kylo. His breathing had started to resume normality. “You’ve given me release, you’ve given me my center, you’ve given me… you’ve given me something to work for.”

“You do it all for me,” whispered Armitage, feeling the rush of power within him.

“I do it for you,” Kylo affirmed. He did it for _them_. The two were one and the same. Armitage kissed him, then set about unchaining his binders and letting him sink to the mat, hands still behind him.

“What have you given me in return?” he asked.

“My body belongs to you. I love the pain because… because y-you love to hurt me…”

He skipped on his words because Armitage had knelt behind him and pressed two fingers against the plug vibrating inside him. Seconds later, he pulled it out and pushed his fingers into its place.

“You’re right,” Armitage whispered. “I do love hurting you. It gives me more pleasure than anything else in my life. And I feel so, so satisfied when you obey my commands to bring your suffering to you easily… you’re already wet, already stretched, such a good boy…” He let Kylo crane his neck back and try to wrest any affection, any softness that Armitage had for him. “Still a greedy little bitch, though. Do you like being wet for me? You were presenting yourself to the empty air earlier, don’t think I didn’t notice that. You want it all, don’t you. You want all of the pain I can give you… all of my affection… every time I want release, you want to have that too, don’t you…”

“I want you to need me as much as I need you. Sir.”

Something twinged. Armitage knew this was not some trick of Kylo’s; he was too far gone for that now. He fell silent after giving Kylo a “shhhh…” before either of them allowed that to go too far. Armitage had the lubricant. Kylo had to be slick and ready for him. He instructed him to turn and face the throne, then to bend over. He raised himself on his spread knees with his cheek pressed against the mat’s yielding surface.

“Look up,” said Armitage. “Look at the throne. Whose is it?”

Kylo was able to turn his head and hold his torso aloft to stare at it. “Yours.”

“And who do you belong to?”

“You!” The firm backside pushed toward Armitage.

“Good boy, Kylo. Such a sweet boy, who knows his place... that’s what I want under me.”

He took him from behind, crouching with his legs on either side of Kylo’s. Kylo moaned with pleasure at the stretch. The thrusts into him and against his sweet spot were a pleasure he had grown accustomed to – “That’s good,” Armitage told him, with some shortness of breath. “You can and should serve as my receptacle easily… without effort…” Attempts to take his eyes from the throne, whether by disobedience or exhaustion, earned Kylo sharp slaps to the flank. When at last his head fell after shaking just after he raised it, Armitage let it lie.

With a long, satisfied groan, Armitage released inside of him. He left Kylo leaking and dripping as he perused his options, and shaking too, because he had never touched his cock. Kylo slumped. He now knew that Armitage had no intention of allowing him relief soon. Armitage took off his own edge, and could now direct all of his attention toward Kylo. Another flog, one with longer, thinner tails, and more of them, slid out of Kylo’s view in Armitage’s hand. As he began to leak onto his thighs the lashes fell and stung them. Both of the flogs rained down on him. Eventually, Armitage let him stand again and put him back on the chain. With the knowledge that he was here to receive pain, not to receive pleasure as his reward, Kylo was free to cry the _right_ way. The way Armitage wanted him to cry. Tears of defeated, impotent anger, not tears of sentiment. But not once did he express that anger openly against Armitage. Only muttered thanks and praises left him, never curses or grievances. Kylo loved his suffering, and he loved how Armitage laughed at him for it.

Armitage demanded a second climax for himself before he allowed Kylo the privilege. Kylo watched, yearning for _anything_ , as Armitage, who now looked more contented with their arrangement than manically delighted as he had, finished on Kylo’s stomach. With the gloves long gone, he gave Kylo two quick strokes and brought him to a shivering, keening orgasm.

Kylo hung in the middle of the throne room for a moment, faintly hearing Armitage’s approving gasps at the amount of ejaculate he had produced. He sounded just as exhausted as Kylo felt. Armitage turned and kissed Kylo on the mouth. They did not kiss, in either of their estimation, as much as most couples, especially not those about to be wed. It was either quick pecks or overwhelming surges of passion that brought violent, burning kisses out of them. This kiss was neither. Armitage moved his mouth slowly against Kylo’s, rubbing up and down his red, lashed back, and paused several times to marvel at the existence of him.

When this kiss had ended, Armitage began to unchain him, but Kylo shook his head and rasped, “No. I need more water first. Please. My throat.” He had burned it with his cries.

“Of course.” Armitage nodded, turned to get him more of the water Kylo had stashed behind the throne, took two steps, and fell over unconscious on his side.

“Armitage?”

Kylo could see Armitage breathing, but he did not answer.

“Armitage…?”

Still nothing. Kylo sighed.

Time had passed. Half a year into their affair, nightmares plagued Kylo Ren.

It was just one nightmare, actually. As a child, Ben Solo had more than a child’s fair share of nightmares. Darkness, cold, the empty vastness of space with no one near him except that low, grating voice that whispered into his mind since before he could remember, a fate worse than solitude. After thirty years he cut them out of his life with a lightsaber. Snoke was well and truly gone. For the first four months after his death, Kylo was free in waking and in sleep from his intrusions. This vision was not Snoke’s doing. That made it all the worse, for it could be his mind’s creation or a warning.

It was really one single image that counted, in his opinion, as a full-fledged nightmare: Armitage approaching the scavenger girl from behind, the girl turning to face him, and the girl holding a blue lightsaber in her right hand and a red one with a crossguard in her left hand. The only one of its kind. There could be no mistaking his own weapon.

“Please learn to use this,” he had tried telling Armitage, holding out the angular grey hilt of the Darksaber, which he still could not use and had given up on ever using. It lay in their quarters, useless.

“Why would I learn to use that? Why wouldn’t I use a blaster, like a civilized person?” Armitage scoffed.

Kylo had not seen a blaster in his recurring vision. Why, indeed, would he not use his blaster if he had one when Rey was menacing him? “Please, at least, try turning it on,” Kylo tried instead.

Armitage cringed as his slim fingers wrapped around the hilt, too large and cumbersome for his hands. Kylo felt his unease. He activated the black blade, humming with power but only _just so_ , and immediately turned it back off, curling his lips in distaste. No roar. No collision with the walls, as Kylo’s unending turmoil produced. Armitage refused to touch it again.

Kylo wanted to tell him why, but he already knew that Armitage would scoff and protest that he would never end up in that situation because he could manage his distance from hand to hand combat more effectively than that, and anyway, he would just shoot her if he had the chance to ambush her. Kylo was being ridiculous, and he knew it.

But, he thought as he looked at the bed to his left in the medical bay, not nearly as ridiculous as Armitage.

Armitage groaned.

“Did you sleep well?” Kylo asked dryly.

Armitage fainted because he had been awake, by Kylo’s estimation, for over two straight cycles with the help of stimulants before meeting Kylo in the throne room, before which he had subsided on naps. Also by Kylo’s estimation he had not been eating enough or drinking enough water. Something about hunger “keeping his edge sharp”. Armitage claimed he had so much work to do that he could not sleep for a scant three or four hours a cycle, which turned into no hours a cycle in the past two. This, thought Kylo, was what happened when Armitage did not have his co-commander to enforce a sleep schedule.

“You did that, didn’t you,” Armitage accused.

“Did what?”

“Knocked me out. Like you always do.”

“While you were getting me the water I had just asked you for?”

“You seem to have done well enough for yourself.”

“I haven’t used the Force to put you to sleep in at least two weeks,” said Kylo. “Having been absent.”

“But you have used it!” Armitage accused.

Kylo scowled. “Of course I did,” he said. “In the past. You wouldn’t _sleep_.”

“I _knew_ it! You said you wouldn’t use the Force against me!” Armitage snapped, sitting up in his bed. Kylo considered using the Force to make him lie down again, but he knew that would only exacerbate his problem. “You promised!”

“It wasn’t _against_ you. It was for your own good! You’d work yourself to death if it wasn’t for me,” said Kylo.

“I was fine before you _inserted yourself_ into my personal sphere!” Armitage swayed slightly from his sitting position.

“I let you determine your own sleeping hours for two weeks and look what you did. You worked too hard. I told you the throne room scene wasn’t the right way to relieve your stress. I told you a nap would – ”

“Waste of time,” said Armitage. “I could have taken you, gone on about my business, and sacrificed one hour instead of however many you’d keep me out of commission for.”

Kylo knew that if he raised his voice, Armitage’s would rise to meet it. He raised it anyway. “You have to sleep, Armitage!” he said, not knowing how else to say it. “You’re a human, humans have to sleep!”

“I never needed to sleep before!” said Armitage, raising his voice over Kylo’s. He tried to lift his arm to gesture with it only to find that he had been stripped to his undershirt and a needle was stuck into the vein in the joint of his elbow. It rehydrated and nourished him. As if he had time for such things. Armitage sucked his teeth and slammed his other hand onto the call button to summon a droid to remove it.

“You’re thirty-five!” shouted Kylo. “You can’t live like that forever!”

“It has nothing to do with that!” Armitage shouted back. “It’s because of _you_! You exhaust me!”

“You’re only saying this because you’re angry at yourself. You’re being unreasonable.”

Armitage held up one pointer finger while the medical droid attended him. “Once this needle is out of my arm…”

Kylo got to his feet. He only had on the soft dark grey robe that waited behind their throne with the water, having rushed Armitage here as quickly as he could without taking the time to properly dress. Between the robe, the undershirt, and Armitage’s inadequate rest, he anticipated that this argument would be a short one. The droid taped a bandage around Armitage’s elbow and Armitage stood, glared, and repositioned the accusatory finger.

Kylo noticed that Armitage had to catch his breath and pause before he resumed his tantrum – he called Kylo’s outbursts tantrums, but he threw them himself. He would have barked reprimands at his soldiers if they so much as thought of raising their heart rates after an incident such as his. _Hypocrite_ , Kylo found himself thinking, nastier than he ever wanted to think anything about Armitage.

“You’re the reason I need to sleep,” said Armitage. “Before we met I could get by with a few hours every three cycles.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Kylo. “And that was almost six years ago.”

“You gave me a… a _sleep dependence_ with your meddling,” said Armitage. “An _addiction_. Sleep is a luxury that a man as important as myself cannot afford. We can’t all have the privilege of lounging around like you do. Some of us have the Order to run.”

Kylo had not been lounging around. He knew that he would face the girl again. The sooner he defeated her, the better he could prevent his vision from having a chance to come true. The hour of their reunion was near, alarmingly so. Tensions were high. Kylo felt it just as keen and stifling as Armitage did. Instead of lounging around, he had transmuted his feelings of anticipation into resolve through meditation and training. He reached highs he could never have imagined – and he knew that Rey had too. Such was their fate. The war would not be won through raw power. It would not be a single clash. He and Rey would have to test themselves against each other in every way. Kylo and Armitage had discussed this many times, so Armitage knew the truth. He simply refused any healthy means of venting his frustrations.

“I could knock you out right now,” he threatened.

“I could call off our wedding,” said Armitage.

Kylo hated that the words affected him. A cold, tiny flame in his gut. He knew Armitage wanted to marry him. He did not know whether or not Armitage was stubborn enough to make good on his overreaction out of spite. It would only take one instance of pushing too far to find out just how vindictive his Grand Marshal could be. Kylo never let that knowledge leave the back of his mind – and intertwined with it was the knowledge that he would inevitably push farther than he meant to. “You said you’d never send me away.”

“When?”

“Back in the beginning,” said Kylo, feeling his throat and lips getting tight. “When I asked you to tell me I was nothing, and you had me on the bed… you said you would never send me away.”

“And you said it was just a game,” countered Armitage. “Did you lie about that too?”

Against reason, the flame of fear at the thought of losing Armitage grew. Kylo knew it had not been a game _entirely_. He said it was not a game to him before they started too. All their games served a purpose. Yes, he had been lying – but he thought that Armitage had no right to call him out on it, or to be angry about needing to sleep, or to use his emotions against him. Before he knew what he was doing, he saw his hand enter his field of vision, fingers tensed and curved toward each other. Was he trying to hold Armitage in place? Choke him? Throw something out of frustration? He knew that he had begun reaching with the Force, whatever he meant the gesture to accomplish.

When Kylo looked away from his hand, he saw that Armitage stared at it too, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and slowly sat down. No further arguments came from him. The fire in Kylo’s stomach turned to cold ash. He wore the same look as Armitage.

“I…”

His hand dropped to his side. Armitage let out a breath he had been holding.

“I didn’t,” Kylo said quickly. “I didn’t use it against you, I kept my promise.”

“You meant to,” said Armitage, looking as though he took a life-threatening risk in saying the words.

“But I didn’t,” Kylo repeated. “I stopped.”

Armitage appeared to be in thought. “I’ll stop as well.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

“Yes,” said Armitage. “I did. I can’t just expect you to… to take it like that. Not outside of the bedroom.”

“Armitage,” Kylo said abruptly. “Did you even mean anything you were saying?”

“No,” Armitage admitted.

“Then in that case,” said Kylo. “We have to stop. This is what the Resistance wants. When we get mad at each other, we’re just helping them. When we fight, they win – Armitage. Armitage!”

Armitage was swaying again. With the tiniest push, a breeze in the Force, Kylo coaxed him onto his back on the narrow, thin mattress, where he clutched his forehead. “But I don’t have time to rest,” he protested. “I don’t. There’s been too much work to do. When you see that victory is in sight, do you relent? No, you charge… You attack…!”

His words slurred together. This was Kylo’s fault, and Kylo knew it. Armitage should not have provoked him by raging over something as ridiculous as his sleep schedule, but Kylo should have said no to the throne room scene. If Armitage had refused no for an answer, he should have waited for Armitage there and made him go to sleep and dealt with the consequences later. He knew when he left on his “diplomatic” mission, visiting the core worlds while Armitage crunched the finishing out of the _Horizon_ , that Armitage would neglect himself in his absence. This was his fault.

“Our victory isn’t in sight yet,” he told him. “We have the promise of it, but it’s still not within reach. Deep breaths. You’ve been working so hard. I know you want to secure a future for us. You’re doing so well.”

Armitage tried to swat Kylo away, but he laid his palm against Kylo’s cheek with nothing behind it. “I’ll sleep on Chandrila. All the work will be done then.”

“That’s after our wedding night.”

“Don’t you dare let me sleep on our wedding night,” Armitage said through his teeth.

“You’ll sleep when I’m done with you,” Kylo muttered.

Armitage gave him a small, wanting noise and tipped back his head. Kylo knew what it meant. Even after months of escalating intimacy Armitage could not always ask for what he wanted. While Kylo had his ways of knowing, he appreciated that Armitage _tried_ to communicate his desires. He wanted to say “kiss me”. A little moan and a toss of the head meant as much. Kylo gave him his kiss, but it was brief.

“You’ll sleep now,” he added.

“No – !”

“All the work is done _now_.”

“It’s not…!”

“You know that you don’t have to be the one that does the rest.”

“I do…!” Despite his protests, Armitage relaxed when Kylo told him he would sleep, slouched on his side with his legs hanging off the side of the bed.

“You don’t,” Kylo whispered. “You did so much. It’s time to rest.”

For a second, he thought that Armitage would ask to be ordered to sleep, but he sighed and turned onto his back. Soon, the needle was back in his other arm and Kylo had him in the depths of much-needed slumber. He wanted to wait at Armitage’s side, but he knew Armitage would prefer him to assign the duties of the final preparations for the next few days to his immediate subordinates. He left him with a kiss on the forehead and a pat on the cheek.

“You shouldn’t have to worry about this part,” Kylo said quietly, knowing he would not be heard. “You’re the reason we’re going to celebrate.”

Looking down at Armitage as his eyelids fluttered into unconsciousness, Kylo considered how quickly their fight and the near-catastrophe of Kylo’s anger left his mind. Months later and Armitage did not care if Kylo was sorry for anything he had ever done to him and he still saw violence as… as something like an annoying inconvenience, like plumbing maintenance, thought Kylo. It made him uncomfortable for Armitage to think that way. And think that way he did. He could see it in his mind. Armitage made no attempts to hide it.

“You should resent me for different reasons,” he told the sleeping Armitage.

He understood why, but he could not accept it.  
  
***

Armitage Hux was fifteen years old. He had never measured the dimensions of his quarters but he would estimate their size at about six foot square. In this enclosed space, Brendol Hux stood before his son, looking down at him above arms crossed over his chest and a sneer. Armitage looked at the strip of bare, cold floor between his father’s boots and his own sock feet hanging off his bed. He had yet to have his growth spurt, but he had definitely reached adolescence, as evidenced by the stack of Imperial propaganda materials on Armitage’s desk.

His father had caught him in the act. Brendol had the code to his door and could enter Armitage’s quarters as he pleased. Pornography was decadent and weak, but the posters and films that Armitage himself had taken an interest in constructing bore images of strength and masculine virility. He had posters, pamphlets, holos, whatever he could get his (dainty, uncalloused, undergrown) hands on.

Armitage fought back tears and ground his teeth to try to stop his lower lip from shaking. Brendol’s silence could suffocate him. He wished that Brendol would hit him, like when he was a child, just let the blows fall on him, bruise him, and have done with it. The threat of violence in the absence of any watchful eyes hung ever-present over the relationship between father and son. Brendol had not struck him in years. He pushed him. He grabbed him by the forearm and squeezed too tightly. He tripped Armitage sometimes to remind him to watch his step.

But the words were worse. Bruises healed. Wounds could be mended. They meant very little to Armitage. If one became sick, tired, or injured, one went to the medical bay. What caused one’s ailments was irrelevant. Memories of Brendol’s voice ran together to form an endless cycling stream in Armitage’s mind. _They_ were forever. Humiliation in his father’s eyes and in the eyes of onlookers – that was forever. The stream welled with each punishment Armitage brought on himself. One day there would come a flood and he would drown and then… he didn’t know what would happen. Maybe this would be it. Maybe his perversion would finally bring on the deluge that washed Armitage away into… something.

“You must get this from your mother,” said Brendol.

The mother Armitage never knew. Not even her name.

“An insatiable lust for _men_ ,” Brendol went on, as if it were not apparent what he meant. “Have I ever told you that the only reason we could identify you as my son is because you had my hair? I couldn’t pin you on anybody else. I had to own up to you to avoid a future scandal. You’ll turn out exactly like the bitch. Wait and see.”

His father had not moved. Armitage had. He tried to shrink into himself without making it too obvious. If he curled into a ball and started sobbing, which he wanted to, it would show more weakness. Every weakness was a chip in his armor that Brendol could use as a handhold to pry the plates apart and jab in a knife.

“Your mother,” said Brendol Hux. “Was the biggest slut I’ve ever met in my entire life… but I’m not dead yet.”

Armitage tried not to cry. The initial tears of shock and panic that he could not suppress when Brendol found him were still drying on his cheeks. He had never wiped them away. He had known all his life what he was. Never had he been able to imagine himself with a woman, not even out of duty. He knew that his father would never accept him, and yet his disapproval burned like it always did. It _always_ did. Armitage told himself over and over that he did not care what Brendol thought. He did not need Brendol. One day soon, he would die, possibly by Armitage’s hand, and Armitage would replace him. But it _always_ hurt.

“If you allow a man like this…” He held up a poster of two handsome, broad-shouldered uniformed Imperial officers erecting a flag together. “…to conquer you, do you know what the outcome will be, Armitage? The man you lowered yourself for will cast you aside when he finds something more valuable to him, leaving you behind, doomed to enjoy what little time remains for men to use you until you’re used up.”

Armitage did not feel like he was born for that. He knew little outside of what Brendol taught him, but he knew enough more to know Brendol made it so on purpose and that there was more outside of his world. “But what if I fall in love?” he asked, cursing how stupid and childish the words sounded when he said them out loud. Unspoken it had seemed a reasonable, rational question. Nobody had ever loved Armitage and he was smart enough to know it, but _allegedly_ people could love each other. Maratelle used to scream at Brendol that she had loved him loud enough for Armitage to hear from the attic. Armitage had overheard stories about love. Nobody had ever talked to him about love. It was the first time he had ever said the word, and he hated the sound of it in his voice. The L, so pleading and whiny. Just like his child self had been in his earliest memories when he cried for Brendol to stop hitting him, before he developed an appreciation for the nuanced art of inflicting pain and realized that Brendol hitting him was the least of his worries. The O, the same sound as in no. The V, closer to an F when he said it.

Until today, nobody had talked to him about sexuality either.

“With who?” Brendol asked.

“I…” Again, he knew little outside of what Brendol dictated would enter their world, including people. His eyes flicked treacherously to the poster. Brendol crumpled the flimsiplast and tossed it into the waste disposal to meet its fate in the compactor, then in the incinerator. He kept any spark of defiance out of his voice as he said, “How should I know? Obviously, I haven’t met him yet. I’ve barely met anyone my own age.”

Brendol chuckled. “Tell me about him. Tell your father about this man you’re going to fall madly in _love_ with.”

Armitage pursed his lips. He hated how the word sounded in Brendol’s voice, too, because it sounded like _rebellion_ or _liberty_ or _individualism_ did when Brendol said them.

“He’ll be handsome?” Brendol prompted, nodding to the garbage chute.

“Yes,” said Armitage. “He _will_ be.” The spark of defiance could not remain covered. “Perhaps like those two, perhaps not. Perhaps the beauty of men is _varied_. In both cases, I doubt I’ve had all my options presented to me.”

Brendol’s amusement flickered for a second into anger. He disliked how Armitage said the word _varied._ It belonged with the words like _love_ and _liberty_. He also disliked the word _beauty_ in association with the masculine. Armitage made a mental note. “A pretty face can’t be good enough for you. It will be once they’ve made a bitch of you, but for now, you’re too self-absorbed. Too conceited, in your ignorance of what life is. You’ll want a total package of a man, I suppose.”

“He will be dedicated to our cause,” Armitage said coolly, knowing that he had tipped Brendol off the pedestal of full control. “We will pursue it together. He will have to be intelligent if he is to be my match. He will be a great warrior – although the ways in which a man can fight against injustice and disorder are surely as many as the ways a man can be beautiful.”

As he spoke, his posture became prouder and taller. He could see Brendol festering in hate. He had not expected Armitage to have any kind of eloquent answer, had expected him to fumble and hesitate and be called shallow-minded and lust-driven. “But a great warrior he will be, and he will fight against anyone and anything that stands between him and his goal of attaining me, yet… he will know when to be gentle.” Here, he did quaver. He paused and took a breath, then closed his eyes. It embarrassed him to say these things in front of Brendol and he felt the burning in his cheeks, but against his father he had no defense except offense. “He will be passionate in all things. The good of the Galaxy, battle, _me_. He’ll care about _me_ more than you do, that’s for damned sure.”

Armitage opened his eyes and looked right into Brendol’s. The tears had stopped threatening to fall, at least for the moment. Brendol’s temperament had surpassed anger and achieved a stone-faced calm. “Armitage,” he said with faint paternal amusement. “I assure you, no one will _ever_ care about you more than your father does.”

He always knew exactly what to say to break his son. In response to sincerity and pride, Brendol told him that his was the strongest bond that would ever exist in Armitage’s life. Armitage refused to believe it – despite his emotions telling him that Brendol was right, Brendol was always right, Brendol knew best, Brendol was his father and cared for him more than anyone… desperately, he bit down on a scream and drew back his arm to try to slap Brendol across the face. Brendol easily caught his son’s arm and twisted it behind his back.

“ _No one_ ,” Brendol hissed into Armitage’s ear, and Armitage smelled the whiskey on his breath. “Will _ever_ care about you more than your father does.”

“ _OW_!”

Brendol shook him and Armitage shut up for his own good. His father should have let go, but he pulled Armitage against his chest. Armitage should scream for help. He wanted to. He should scream for Grand Admiral Sloane, but he wanted to scream for someone who he had never met and knew he never would. Sloane tried to protect him but never fully could. Armitage suspected that Brendol had conditioned him to be incapable of protecting his mind from Brendol somehow. Somehow, someday, he thought bitterly, he would purge that from himself. He could never prove to himself that Brendol was wrong. Only the faceless phantom of a man Armitage described could prove Brendol wrong. He looked at the door to his quarters. Locked. Shut. Nobody was on the other side of it. It seemed to pull away from him.

“Stop squirming, boy.”

“L-let go…”

The stutter was weakness. Brendol drove the knife of his words in.

“This man you’ve described, should he exist, will want nothing to do with you. If he truly cares for the Order or even has any wits about him, he’ll want a woman who can give him something worth fighting for. A home. Children. The things you should want to cultivate, too. But no, you want everything, you want to be a man without supporting a family and to be a man’s wife without creating family.”

Armitage was aflame with anger. “Because you set such a good example!”

“Selfish, degenerate, wanton brat!”

Brendol threw him onto the alley of floor between his desk and bed. It hurt, but it was better than Brendol holding him upright.

“If you didn’t bear my name,” said Brendol. “If you didn’t reflect on my reputation, I would have you conditioned for the life you want. You could have the honor of serving the Order as the rotten piece of meat you are. But I won’t. I will instead train you to be a man, as I have, as I always will, mercifully and despite your unworthiness, turning my one failure into my most impressive and improbable achievement. Because I am your father, and I _love_ you.”

Brendol spat each word. Armitage heard the squeak of Brendol’s boots on the floor, then heard the door open and shut. For a minute, he did not look up. When he finally looked up, he saw that he was alone in the dark of his tiny quarters, and the red light next to the door told him that Brendol had entered a code to lock him in from the outside.

Armitage remained on the floor with the knowledge that sex was a matter of victory and defeat. Commander and subordinate. Predator and prey. Strength and weakness. It was as Brendol said. He could not scrub the idea from his mind. Not the physical pain, and not Brendol’s words, but his own inability to overcome the years of Brendol’s conditioning pushed him into despair. Brendol set himself in the center of Armitage’s world only to disapprove of him and trap him into a never-stopping wheel of scrambling for his father’s approval. Should Armitage perform well enough Brendol sometimes doled out the smallest drops of affection and Armitage lapped them up as if they could keep him from dying.

Why couldn’t he stop caring about Brendol? What was love? Armitage would ask himself the question a few more times as his teenage years passed him by. He would conclude that it was a meaningless word that people used to control each other. Maratelle tried to use it to control Brendol. Brendol used it to control him. Regimes used the hint of it to control those who were vulnerable. Perhaps Brendol had used it to control his mother…

He felt this certainty about love deep inside of him as he lay on the floor, but willed it away. He could not face it then. He refused. He could get a little more use out of the idea of this nameless, shapeless shroud of a man in his future to dull the knife Brendol had for a tongue. Temporarily. What little strength his limbs possessed had drained away. Armitage could barely feel them or the floor beneath him. He could feel the sand and the scorching air of Jakku and himself, a tiny speck of a weak and worthless child in the unending expanse of existence. He heard screams and smelled blood. He dragged his hands up to cover his face and, once he could no longer make himself care if Brendol lurked outside his door waiting for the satisfaction of hearing, sobbed.

 ***

He first became aware of his unsteady breathing, then his racing heart, then his headache, then his closed eyelids. If he opened them, he would learn which had been a dream: the past twenty years, or his teenage trauma. Kylo, or Brendol. He opened his eyes and awoke fully in the medical bay of the _Horizon_ , the ship of his creation. Armitage Hux was thirty-five. He was engaged to be married. Brendol was dead. Brendol was dead. Brendol was dead. A mantra.

Next to his bed he did not see Kylo watching over him as he expected, but found a handwritten note, a boxed meal, and thermos of Tarine tea, and another thermos of water. Without any witnesses around Armitage smiled reading the note. Kylo left him handwritten reminders, love letters, poems, and whatever else his whims led him to write all the time, but Armitage still found them charming. Quaint. Unique to Kylo, whose existence he would never have believed before meeting him, and yet who seemed more real than anyone he had ever met.

Including Brendol.

Ten hours had passed since Kylo induced sleep. The note instructed him, under orders, to take his time getting up, sip the water, eat, call for more if he needed it, and inform Kylo when he was comfortably up. All relevant personnel were under orders not to provide the Grand Marshal with stims. Only his tea. Kylo had signed his name, and then drawn the two five-pointed stars joined at one of their points he always added to the end of his written messages to Armitage. The two stars represented the two of them, Kylo explained. They were holding hands.

“Still a child,” said Armitage, smiling anew, and opened the thermos of tea. He took a long sip (it had gone lukewarm) and let his finger crinkle the paper, not daring to touch the ink. “You were wrong about me, Kylo. We were taught two different lies…”


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his wedding, Armitage is disturbed to learn that his relationship with Kylo has given him a weakness far worse than sleep dependence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains content which may be triggering or otherwise upsetting to some readers. Please see notes at the end of this chapter for a more detailed warning which by necessity contains spoilers.

Who would have walked Armitage down the aisle?

Assuming the parameter that Armitage would have, in this scenario far, far removed from reality, been walked down the aisle and given to his husband in the manner of brides on some of the core worlds, who would have walked him down the aisle? The only person he had left was Kylo. Neither of them would have a wedding party. Nobody who could have given him away was alive.

Brendol Hux? Brendol’s seething hate and humiliation at seeing his son wed and in the seat of power would have been worth letting him share Armitage’s day of victory. Brendol never met Kylo. It might have been worth letting him live to see him, if Armitage had the gift of future sight.

Rae Sloane? Brendol was his father. Other remnants of the past had no role in this spectacle.

Phasma? Dopheld Mitaka, possibly? He missed their competence. Mitaka’s presence would have aided him tremendously in the recent weeks. He could have granted either of them the privilege of giving him to the Supreme Leader. He could have had them both in his wedding party. He had their pictures ready to hang on the wall of his and Kylo’s new quarters on the _Horizon_. He had to stop thinking about them.

It was a day like any other, except that it was the most important day of Armitage’s life, except that there had been many other days which determined the course of his life in ways that dwarfed the effect of one minor legal formality, except that he had given up hoping for such an insignificant day of his life before he even became a man, except that he had lived as Kylo’s consort for months so that meant —

“Your hands are shaking.”

A large black-gloved hand closed gently around a smaller white-gloved hand. Armitage jumped and pulled the smaller hand away. “Not before we’re married.”

They had not touched each other so far during that cycle. In a few short moments they would take the stage on board the _Horizon_. Kylo would declare himself Supreme Leader. He would then declare Armitage both the Grand Marshal and his consort, all of which had been effectively true for months. Armitage had nothing to feel nervous about until after the ceremony.

_The final consummation_.

That was the only way to phrase it. Kylo laughed at him for it, but when Armitage laid out his terms, Kylo stopped laughing.

Kylo had not liked Armitage’s terms. Armitage refused to compromise them. He would have no pretense. He would have none of Kylo’s trickery. Armitage would have nothing distracting from the frank transaction of power between them, and Kylo would not have the pleasure of deflowering a blushing, timid bride for whom he proclaimed his love. For Armitage _was_ his untouched bride in a white uniform, and he felt no shame in it. What shame could he feel in taking things that people he despised said could never be his?

He could indefinitely withhold his consent to marry Kylo. Kylo told him they would marry whenever _Armitage_ said he was ready to marry him. If Kylo wanted him under the law, even though he himself was the law now, he had to either have Armitage on his terms or claim him by force. Even with no threat made, such a choice was no choice at all. Therefore, Armitage chose force, and he smiled coldly as he chose it. The smile turned to a scowl when Kylo shrugged his acceptance and commented that even after everything that came to pass between them, Armitage could rarely ask for what he wanted outright. But Armitage still got his way.

“It’s not live,” Kylo reminded him. “As far as anyone knows, none of this happens for three more days. And when we’re done, you don’t have to go through with anything. It was your idea. You can change your mind.”

“I will not,” Armitage insisted, staring resolutely at the door in front of them. “From the instant we leave that hangar, I’m your defeated opponent. I’m having none of your sentimental nonsense today, Kylo Ren.”

Despite Armitage presenting him with a perfect opportunity to launch into his customary sentimental nonsense, Kylo did not. “I’ll stay attuned to your thoughts,” he said. “If it becomes too much for you, I’m going to stop.”

“It _won’t_ ,” Armitage said, largely to himself, as he clenched his fists in their gloves. “The only thing you’d better do in my head is make it feel real.”

“It’s for me,” said Kylo. “It’s for my own reassurance.”

“I said no nonsense.”

“You’re riling yourself up.”

“Stop.”

“You are my co-commander and your well-being is in my interest.”

Armitage _was_ riling himself up. Kylo’s reassurances were likely _not_ his usual line of nonsense. He took a few deep breaths, trying to center himself and stay in the moment and Kylo had tried to teach him to do. He never practiced, so it never worked when he needed it to. He reminded himself that he chose all of this: his marriage, the date of it, the coincidence of the union with their declaration of their leadership and the presentation of his ship, and the terms and conditions surrounding the consummation. All of it happened on Armitage’s terms. By his rules. Kylo had acquiesced to him in every respect that Armitage had cared to dictate. The only thing Kylo chose, as far as Armitage could recall, was who to take as his consort and what suit to wear.

This did cause him to huff a little in amusement. The Supreme Leader had taken to either not wearing a shirt, or failing to close them, or choosing ones that simply did not close. How generous of him to put a suit on. How thoughtful of him, to choose modesty on the day of his wedding. He truly prioritized Armitage’s feelings in every respect on his special day. Man of his dreams.

In reality, Kylo probably just wanted to dress up and be admired. Armitage glanced at his suit. Velvet on brocade on satin. A black cape on a black suit on a black shirt and tie with black embroidery. To Armitage, it looked almost perversely decadent. In reality, their positions allowed them levels of opulence that would make the suit Kylo chose for his wedding day look like as much of an embarrassment as Armitage regularly told the man wearing it he was, only for Kylo to smile and say something to the effect of “I care very much for you as well.”

“Supreme Prettyboy.”

“Mm?”

“That’s you.”

“I know. You tell me I’m pretty all the time, as if I’ve had a chance to forget.”

He caught Kylo glancing over at him and smiling, then caught himself smiling back. “I approve of the choice you made with your suit.”

“You seem like you’re feeling better,” said Kylo.

“I was just thinking,” said Armitage. “About what a ponce you are today.”

“You act like I’m a ponce every day,” said Kylo.

“You’re usually just a slut,” Armitage said crisply. “Thank you for realizing that today is about _me_.”

“Today is about the First Order,” said Kylo. “But… your demands are about you, and that’s why I’ll meet them.”

“Good boy.”

“I won’t hold back. But I don’t like it,” Kylo added. “I don’t _like_ that this is what you want. I don’t _like_ that I haven’t found a way to make us both completely at ease with this. But I have to marry you. To not marry you would pain me more than what you will have me do to you.”

“Obviously,” said Armitage, willfully failing to grasp the emotional impact of Kylo’s words. “Or I would not have made such demands.”

Kylo dared to kiss him on the temple. It was over before Armitage knew he had done it. He made a fuss over his hat, which he knew had not moved.

If they allowed hundreds of Stormtroopers to watch the proceedings word could all too easily get out that the broadcast was not live and the second Starkiller Base would not be unprotected when the Resistance was meant to think their greatest enemies would be distracted by their newly wedded bliss. They had a team waiting to add the Stormtroopers in between the recording and the airdate. They would also see to it that a believable number of commissioned officers were in attendance, as well as High Command. This would be the first mention of High Command in months. Footage could be manipulated.

Hux and Ren passed together between two non-present blocks of their troops in the massive empty hangar of the _Horizon_. They kept their eyes locked on their objective: a podium, the same one he stood behind when he gave his eulogy for Captain Phasma. Between two long, unfurled pennants of the First Order stood the highest-ranking of its officers.

The only person Armitage noticed was Edrison Peavey. Peavey’s eyes were fixed on his face, but Armitage found him unreadable, either of Peavey’s nerve or of Armitage’s nerves. He stood third from the right in the line of officers. Kylo and Armitage crossed from the right side of the row, with Kylo between Armitage and the expanse of the hangar. The look between them lasted only a few seconds before Armitage turned.

Peavey had given Armitage similar stone-faced, inscrutable looks on more than one occasion. He recalled something about an incident in his and Kylo’s quarters of which he could not remember all the details, because Armitage had been drunk, but he knew Peavey had been there and they had some kind of confrontation. It did not matter anymore.

Armitage Hux would do what he did best. He stood gripping the sides of the podium and pretended to look out at his troops. Then, he looked over their heads, closed his eyes, took one deep breath, and addressed the Galaxy:

“Where there was division within the First Order… there is now unity.”

He let the echo of the word _unity_ die off.

“I have heard your questions: Did they not loathe one another? Would they not have slit one another’s throats? Did they not speak only ill of each other, did they not hold each other in bitter contempt? I have your answer: _Yes_. It is all true, and no-one in his right mind, and holding the First Order’s best interest in his right mind, will deny it.

“I didn’t like Kylo Ren. He was coarse, and rough, and irritating, and the messes he made got _everywhere_. He and I wished for one another’s failure, degradation, defeat, and demise for five years of grueling, mutually assured misery. But they were five years of illusions and delusions. Five years of lies and deceit. For we were not one another’s true enemy. We should have been the greatest of allies. For five years, we were misled by our true enemy, a loathesome creature who cared only for the pursuit of dark power for its own sake… unlike our Supreme Leader, who sees it as a tool. His gift continues to give, given to him by nature, and given to all of us for our collective benefit, aid, and advancement.

“If the petty squabble that the tyrant Snoke kept us engaged in for his own amusement continued, we would have failed all of you! It is our task to lead and uplift, not to push down our comrades for the sake of our own egos. We could not ask any virtue of you that we were unwilling to practice ourselves. We had a duty to set our feud aside, and in casting it off, we also cast off the veil which, for five years, made us blind.

“Where there was division within the First Order, there is now unity. Where there was conflict, there is an alliance. Where there was self-sabotage which could have led to weakness and all our undoing, there is now only strength. With the full support of High Command, I salute and celebrate the rightful authority of our Supreme Leader.”

Thus ended his address. Behind him, he heard someone exhale. He had spoken to the empty room as passionately as he would have a room filled half with his most fervent supporters and half with Resistance trash. Armitage nodded, took another deep breath, and relaxed his grip on the podium. He had held onto it so tightly that it hurt to release. His throat stung, and tears stung at his eyes, but whether they were from his passion toward his cause or his intended, he did not know.

Armitage took three steps back from the podium. Like a cloud of darkness itself, like the comforting infinitude of space, Kylo moved forward to replace him. He moved like the heavy clouds over Arkanis, thought Armitage. Sometimes they brought drizzle, sometimes they brought storms, and sometimes they brought only the day-to-day grey blanket overhead. Despite hanging in the sky and moving on the air, they never drifted or glided or blew. They rolled, or they stormed. Kylo moved like they did, varying with his mood.

“I could repeat everything that I have told you over the months that have passed between my assumption of power and the present day,” Kylo began. “I could tell you about the new era of the First Order. I could tell you about created jobs, or the distribution of resources to ensure that no innocent need be sacrificed on the barbarian altar of excess. I could tell you that the terrorists who resist a life of honor and unity have hardly troubled us in all this time, and perhaps that they may never again, yet that we must always remain vigilant even as we prioritize improving ourselves. I could tell you about spirit, your own spirit… but I’m going to tell you something which, right now, seems of more immediate importance to me.

“For all this time, I have been your Supreme Leader. Today’s proceedings are merely a formality. Armitage Hux…” He paused almost undetectably. “…has worked at my side for all this time as well. Therefore, my first official act as Supreme Leader is to declare him, as he has been and as the mantle he wears marks him, my Grand Marshal.”

Here, he paused, to allow for applause from the troops. The officers knew to remain silent and still, presenting an image of stoic power. The silence was deafening.

“And my second official act,” said Kylo, in the same tone as he pronounced the first. “Is to take him as my consort.”

Armitage had not meant to cast his eyes down and smile when he heard the words, but he did. He meant to pronounce his line clear and even, so that it could be heard without amplification. But he heard it oh so softly: “I shall obey you, my Lord.”

He looked up and realized that Kylo and all of the officers were looking at him, none of them having heard what he said. He started and said it again: “I shall obey you, my Lord!”

Kylo looked into his eyes and offered his hand. The only present Stormtroopers (all of whom were privy to the full extent of their verbal marriage contract) waited to escort them out the same door they entered through, on the far side of the hangar. They crossed the immense grey expanse of the floor. Armitage did not bother trying to imagine Stormtroopers cheering or changing or holding their fists up as one. Just before they joined the six troopers Kylo put his arm around Armitage. He was supposed to wait until they left the hangar, but the slight transgression only excited Armitage. His stomach jumped and his breath caught in his throat.

Kylo gripped his shoulder too firmly. He was a prisoner. A conquest. Their marriage was a symbol, nothing more and nothing less. He walked, escorted at gunpoint, to a room meant for war meetings and negotiations, wherein lay a long table surrounded by twenty seats. By the time Kylo pushed him into one of them Armitage could only hear his heartbeat.

His eyes followed the contract from the moment the lead Stormtrooper produced it. The sheet of flexiplast went to Kylo first. He read it all, letting anticipation build inside of Armitage, pausing to glance at his consort periodically. The soft smile was no more. Any one of the people surrounding Armitage could subdue him with ease. None of them were his allies.

If someone told him a year ago that he would marry this man, Armitage would have assumed it would happen in exactly this way.

Kylo slid the contract over the table to him. The two surfaces hissed faintly with friction. Without reading it, Armitage signed, and it was taken away. Kylo had ordered it framed once complete.

“Leave us.”

Armitage listened to the footfalls of the Stormtroopers as they filed out, and then to the door as it closed. It was only the two of them now. Armitage and his husband looked at one another in silence. Kylo leaned back at the head of the table, one elbow propped against the arm of the chair. Armitage sat two seats down from his left hand, seated perfectly straight on the edge of his seat, not touching the piece of furniture at any other point.

“Are you afraid?” asked Kylo.

“Yes,” said Armitage. He meant it both in the conceit of the fantasy and in truth. He had not known that Kylo would present as convincing of an act as he presented thus far. The second his arm circled him Armitage felt a change in the very air.

“Good. You should be afraid. You have every reason to be.” Neither of their raised his voice. Armitage’s heart raced. “I could kill you. I have no desire to kill you, but I could kill you. Because of that, I can force you to do anything I please. Anything. I hope you know – I believe you do know – that I have absolutely no need for a Grand Marshal in my regime.”

A chill went down the back of Armitage’s neck. For a second, he truly believed what Kylo said. Kylo caught the minute widening of his eyes and chuckled.

“Your title means…” Kylo shook his head dismissively. “…nothing. Your rank means nothing. There’s never been a Grand Marshal before. It’s completely without meaning. I could have just as easily called you the Sublime Consort or my slave and it would have meant the same thing. I believe you also know that you’re going to be stripped of your command. You’re going to take that uniform off, in a few minutes. It will be for the last time. You will be stripped of your personal autonomy, of any right to self-determination.”

It was everything he wanted, everything he asked Kylo for, and yet his chest felt tight and the rigidity of his posture broke into jerky twitching and mumbled protests.

“Shut up, Hux,” said Kylo, and Armitage found himself doing so. “Do you want to know why I gave you the title you wanted? Because you wanted it. Because every single day for the rest of your life, you’re going to hear yourself addressed by it with mockery. Not only with the title, of course. I’m not going to call you Grand Marshal all the time. I can call you so many other things. You’ve always thought of me as a child. A brat. I’ve always thought you were like a doll. I intend to play with you. Dress you up. Display you. You are mine to touch, position, examine, neglect, and abuse at my whim. Do not hope for me to neglect you.”

_Doll_. Kylo had called him that before. Armitage felt lightheaded, hearing the term of endearment re-framed as a threat.

“But I’ll remind you, with the title you dreamed of hearing, that you thought you deserved to rule. You thought you deserved to command. You don’t. I make the rules. I make the decisions. I determine how the resources of the First Order are best used, and I will put you to use as I see fit.”

“N-no…”

It all felt so real by then that Armitage did not think to question if Kylo might have used the Force to project a sense of belief onto him. He felt his throat tighten. For a moment, he did not even realize _that_ was the Force, threatening the flow of his breath into his lungs. He clutched at his neck, trying to gulp in air…

“I told you to shut up.”

He had to shut up for trying to breathe. Tears were falling onto the hand clutching the invisible grip on his throat. He could not have screamed for help if he tried. There was no point. Kylo pushed him from the chair without lifting a finger. Armitage was dragged across the floor by his throat until he lay coughing and shuddering at Kylo’s feet – but he could breathe again.

Kylo’s chair turned to let Kylo face him. Armitage and his husband looked at each other again for several seconds, neither moving from his position. The only sound was Armitage’s gasping until Kylo spoke again.

“Why are you crying?” he asked.

“You know why!”

“Mmm… but I want to hear you say it.”

“Because I’m afraid!”

“You’re afraid? Oh…” Kylo leaned forward. One of his hands caught Armitage by the hair. “Of me? Of your ruler? Your husband?”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

“B-because…!” He hated himself for stuttering.

“Because I’m dangerous to what _you_ think is _your_ First Order,” said Kylo. “Because I’m reckless, emotional, impulsive, and have no idea how to govern anything, including myself.”

“Yes!”

“No,” said Kylo. “That’s not why. Tell me the truth, Armitage.”

“Because…” So small. So weak. “…because… you’re going to make m-me…”

“Yes. I am going to make you. Whenever I want, however I want, in front of whoever I want. Pretty little Armitage, tucked right at my side… the only thing you can do is learn to enjoy it.”

“No…”

“You will. Your brain won’t let you suffer for too long. Your ego is too fragile for you to face your powerless, humiliated, degraded reality and leave _you_ intact. I give you a month before it starts to convince itself this is what you want. And once it succeeds, how will you ever know better? You’ll love being my doll. You’ll feel so happy, sitting on my lap, showing yourself off… your whole worth is based on what a good bitch you are…”

On his knees, with Kylo stroking his hair as it fell out of its careful arrangement, he made a good image of a bitch. Kylo’s fingers scratched under his jaw. Armitage sniffed.

“I don’t expect you to break right now. But I do expect obedience. Look at me. Say it.” Armitage glared at him, refusing until Kylo slapped him lightly on the cheek. “Say it.”

“Yes… Supreme Leader…”

“That’s better,” Kylo murmured. “No more talking.”

Armitage caught himself before he could speak, and instead nodded.

“That’s perfect. Stand up. It’s time to take off that uniform.”

Kylo unfastened each clasp and button on his uniform and removed the pieces with unnecessary stroking of the flesh beneath them. He hummed his approval at everything, which Armitage found disgusting, but it was better than the horrible things he had said… Armitage did not have to pay attention to this, he thought. He could think of something else. Anything else. He could close his eyes and pretend to be elsewhere – until Kylo made his throat go tight and warned him to remain present in the moment.

“If I catch you doing that again,” he said sternly. “You will wish you’d tried to enjoy yourself. Try to enjoy yourself _now,_ instead of waiting for me to make you regret your actions.”

Scolding him like a child. Armitage bit his lip. Kylo piled his uniform in an inconsiderate heap on the long table. Armitage looked at it. It need not be treated with care now. He would never have a reason to put it back on.

It was not uncommon for whichever of them held control of a given encounter to remain clothed but have the other one naked. Armitage would order Kylo to be naked when he received pain. More than once, Kylo had stripped Armitage at the end of a day’s business and had him curl up at his side while they watched a holo, or given Armitage a massage, or slowly brought him to climax. But never had Armitage felt this endangered by his exposure. He had never been holding back sobs. Kylo had never pinched and grabbed at him quite like this. He had always treated his body with reverence and whispered his affection to Armitage. Was this how he behaved when Kylo gave up control to him? No, Armitage was never like this, either.

“Who does all of this belong to?” Kylo whispered. Armitage felt the heat of his breath against his ear.

“You…”

“What about this?”

His fingers found the base of the plug inside Armitage. It slid out of him. He heard it hit the floor some distance behind him. Kylo tried to replace it it with two dry gloved fingers. Armitage fought to pull away. The fabrication was, in that moment, complete. A cry wrenched itself from Armitage. Kylo pulled him back and buried the two fingers inside of him. His arm held Armitage around the neck, weighing him down, and he pressed his forehead against Armitage’s mussed ginger hair. Armitage tried to cover himself with his arms folded over his stomach. This was it. Kylo would have him.

“Don’t fight me,” said Kylo. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to punish you. Don’t fight me. Will you resist again? Are you going to fight anymore?”

“No…” Armitage whispered.

“Good. Who does this belong to?”

“It’s yours…”

“Do you know what it’s for?”

“I do.”

“Did you train it for me?”

“I did.”

“Good…”

The leather-gloved fingertips caused Armitage more discomfort than pleasure. He was thankful when Kylo pulled them out. Despite his preparations, it hurt. He dared not move when Kylo left his side. One of the chairs hid a bottle and a pamphlet. When Kylo handed it to him and he blinked back his tears, Armitage saw that it was meant to educate members of the First Order of appropriate sexual conduct: only the kind which could grow the Order’s ranks. Outdated, but Kylo still had it.

“Choose one,” said Kylo. “Don’t talk. Point to what you want.”

Armitage could barely read any of the words on the page. Until now he would never have considered anything printed here degrading to either participant. They were disinteresting to him personally, but as proper as such activities could be. All of it looked disgusting now, even illustrated with vague, blockish figures representing man and woman, when he looked at it knowing he had to choose the method of his destruction. The first page depicted the female on her back, legs spread wide, being penetrated by a standing male partner. It was as good as anything else. Armitage pointed.

“I approve,” said Kylo. “Get on the table.”

The table against his back, hard and unmovable, chilled him into something of an awakening. But from what? From the conceit of the scene, to return him to reality? No. It immersed him, as the other elements of Kylo’s performance. It felt more real when he shivered and felt the bones of his hips pressed against the table. Kylo held him down, sinking his uncovered fingers into reddening flesh, until Armitage stopped trying to close his legs. The knowledge fell on Armitage, like a downpour of freezing rain, of what was happening. That Kylo was capable of this – _still_ capable of this, of what Armitage would have expected from him before they became close – and that Armitage had demanded it of him. That this was Armitage’s own doing.

He heard Kylo talking, praising him for having trained himself for use – “You wanted this. You wanted it… you did… that’s why you were so good for me, that’s why you made yourself exactly what I wanted you to be… Look at this, you’re so hard… You’re such a mess… You love it. You love being put in your place…” – as he confirmed for himself that Armitage was prepared. He felt sadistically soft kisses on his thighs and stomach – “This is mine. This belongs to me.” – but he also felt his head spinning and his breath escaping him.

Two of Kylo’s fingers dug into his sweet spot. Armitage knew better than to try covering his mouth. He knew Kylo would force as many cries as he wanted out of him. He gave him what he wanted. The fingers withdrew and the hand slapped his thigh.

“Stay in the moment.”

Armitage did not want to stay in the moment. He wanted to escape, leave his body behind and let Kylo have his way with it, then return when… when? When it was over? When Kylo was finished with him? Or when Kylo returned to being… being not like this?

Yes. Seeing Kylo take off his suit told him that was the truth. He wanted to escape and return when Kylo went back to being the man who woke up next to him that morning. He could not escape. When Kylo returned, he looked at him with displeasure because Armitage had left the moment again.

“What did I _just_ tell you to do?” Kylo spat.

Armitage did not resist when Kylo wrapped his legs around his waist. The _Eclipse_ , he realized. This was how they had been positioned after their first kiss, with Armitage on a table and Kylo over him. Armitage’s legs were around Kylo’s waist. That was the final blow.

“Kylo…” _No_ …

Something flickered. Kylo opened his mouth and for a second, the softness that Armitage had railed against crossed his face. “Wh… what did I tell you to do, Armitage?”

Armitage found that although he had lost some feeling in it, he could raise his right arm. Nothing held it down, not Kylo or the Force he commanded. With strength he never thought he could possess he caught the back of Kylo’s neck and pulled himself up. Their lips met only for a few seconds. Neither of them moved. Armitage had forgotten how to kiss him.

After those few unmoving seconds, panic seized him. What had Armitage _done_? He had opened himself to more contempt. He let go and began to fall. He would accept whatever retaliation Kylo inflicted for his misconduct and for his inability to live in the moment any longer. But before he could fall back onto the table, he fell into the arm that Kylo had tucked behind him. Kylo surrounded him. He was everywhere and he was everything. Armitage knew that he hung suspended only by him. He could be dreaming already, or he could be on the verge of oblivion. He did not know.

“What do you love more than anything else, Armitage?”

The voice belonged to a different man than the one who told him to get on this table. It had to. Armitage wanted to hold him, but his body barely responded to his mind now.

“I lo – ”

Kylo kissed him again, swallowing the rest of Armitage’s words. Armitage whimpered against his mouth. He needed to say it. He needed to tell Kylo. But Kylo’s face filled his sight, with those soft brown eyes looking into Armitage’s with all the understanding in the stars. “I know,” he whispered. “You’re safe.”

“Nnnn…” Armitage wanted to please him, but he needed to say that no, Kylo didn’t know. Not really. Not the way Armitage did, so that it burned inside of his chest and throat.

“I do,” Kylo softly insisted. “I shouldn’t have asked. I knew.”

Armitage felt him drawing away. “No. Don’t stop…” He clung to locks of black hair and to Kylo’s shoulder.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes…”

“Right now? Like this?”

“Yes.”

Because, although Armitage could not say it, Kylo had done what was right, even when Armitage could not tell him what the right thing to do was. Had he not stopped, something would have broken within Armitage, but Kylo had stopped just short of it. Armitage needed him now as he never had before.

He became aware that Kylo put him back on the table, but he could no longer feel the cold beneath him. He felt lighter than air and brighter than any sun. He felt Kylo tearing him apart, and he felt the pain leave him as a scream, which became heaving to keep air in his lungs, which became the word _yes_ to him. He heard his name in Kylo’s voice repeated without any purpose except Kylo’s pleasure in speaking it, choked with need and want, and then choked with Armitage’s hands on his throat. The pain never stopped. It dulled into something Armitage could drown in. Kylo burned him inside. He sealed him as his and left Armitage dripping with both of their climaxes and his legs hanging off the table.

Long after that (or what felt like long after) Kylo sat beside him with kisses and low-voiced soothing until Armitage found himself. His breathing and heart rate slowed. Time resumed its usual pace. Space righted itself within the frame of the ship, but remained distant. Finally, he could turn onto his side, and then sit up, which prompted Kylo to move him into a chair.

“Is… is thi…” Why try to speak? He wanted to know the answer to his question, but speaking took so much effort. Slumping naked in the chair and enjoying everything he could still feel, like the smooth upholstery to the chill in the air to the pain and pleasure still throbbing through him was so much easier. Catharsis he knew well, but he had fallen further than he ever had before.

“Shhh…”

Kylo gave him water, produced without Armitage’s notice. His palm pressed against his forehead. Both of them were covered in sheens of sweat. Armitage knew that Kylo had looked inside of his mind for the question: _Is this how you feel after I hurt you?_

“Not exactly,” said Kylo.

Armitage awoke later on board the _Finalizer_. Only their bed and one suitcase each remained in their quarters. His last awakening in this room, he thought. Between his personal failings and Kylo’s interference he had ruined his sleep schedule. Kylo was still asleep next to him, with one arm outstretched beyond the edge of their mattress and his head resting on his tricep. Armitage lay on his back for a long time. He needed to eat. He needed to drink. He needed the refresher. He had a headache. He did not want to get out of bed.

“Are you awake?”

A _rasp_. Armitage had screamed so much that he lost his voice. They were scheduled to leave for Chandrila in mere _hours_. They had a suite rented. Not in Hanna City, but in some other town that he expressed enthusiasm about. The decision had fallen completely to Kylo. Armitage had no idea where he thought they should honeymoon. Indeed, he thought they should postpone their honeymoon, or not take one at all. _Honeymoon_ was only another word for _vacation_ , and Armitage Hux did not know the meaning of _that_ word. But Kylo argued that a vacation before laying their trap for the Resistance would do them good, and that they had the right to enjoy themselves as a married couple and to celebrate.

Did Armitage _want_ to honeymoon? Kylo had asked him. Armitage had to think about it. Kylo cared about things like this more than Armitage did, or more than he would admit that he did. How much of his aversion to sentimentality was his own, and how much was a product of his past?

Armitage sighed and closed his eyes. Kylo had not answered his question. He laid his hand on Kylo’s flank. Ran his thumb back and forth over the pale skin rising and falling with his breath. The rise and fall continued undisturbed. Yes, he was asleep. Good. Let him sleep. His husband worked hard, and endured much, and Armitage… wanted him to enjoy himself. Kylo deserved to sleep. He deserved the honeymoon. And Armitage thought, as he had concluded when Kylo asked him, that he wanted to go with him on one and enjoy it with him.

Things had changed. Most people would say they changed for the better. Objectively, Armitage knew that “most people” would be correct in that assessment. He and Kylo had disagreements, but the majority of those disagreements involved caring for each other too much.

…no. They involved Kylo caring about Armitage at all. He pulled his hand back, sighed again, and rolled so that his back was to the other man. Armitage _tried_. He _tried_ to let Kylo care. But he refused to care for himself. He would not sleep enough without Kylo making him. He would never let down his walls and learn to let another person come to _know_ him… or even take a day off. But it was hard to allow anyone, including himself, to help him for longer than it took to enjoy the rush of being… of Kylo… of letting Kylo _have_ him. Yes, he would call it that this time. _Having him_.

Why, in the name of all the stars, did Kylo even want to marry him? Either under the law, or by entering the marriage in everything but name they have lived in for months. Why? Kylo had no reason to tolerate this behavior. It seemed to bother him more than other things about him that Armitage expected people would be bothered by in a marriage partner. But he knew why. The answer reared its ugly little head in Armitage’s mind to remind him of what he tried not to think about except in moments like these, and then tried to forget immediately: Kylo found Armitage’s resistance to care his _only_ unacceptable quality. _Everything else,_ Kylo could stand. Fear clenched his gut. That judgment itself was a form of the very thing he ran away from. Not only that, but he already knew why Kylo wanted to marry him. It was for the same reason that he had to have Kylo for himself: so that nobody else could.

He had to distract himself. Armitage got up, went to the refresher, sat on the bowl for a long time in quiet terror of everything that lay in his future, put on his robe, ordered the kitchen droids to bring him a sandwich and something for his throat, then sat on the edge of their bed eating it. Over the next half-hour he slowly consumed more water than he could safely under ordinary circumstances, but he knew dehydration caused his headache. After eating and drinking, it lessened.

On his next return trip from the refresher, where he gargled the concoction of bitterness medbay sent him for his throat (three times a day, with warm water) he saw Kylo’s eyes open and watching him. He beckoned. Armitage, still in his robe, crawled to his side. Kylo put a holo on. It was a play. Kylo mentioned briefly that he had in mind for them to go watch a different play by the same author in Salline. That was the name of the city. Salline. Armitage remembered now. Kylo had a brief tour of Salline planned for them over the next two days. He had expected that Kylo would want to spend the duration of the honeymoon never leaving their suite. He should have known better. Of course Kylo wanted to get some culture into him. Some romance. Armitage let his head fall on Kylo’s shoulder and smiled.

“Did you lose your voice?”

Armitage nodded.

“I’m sorry. That was my fault.”

Armitage shook his head.

“I’ll talk less.

Armitage put his hand over Kylo’s mouth.

The brief tour of Salline was scheduled to involved the play, a visit to their suite, dinner, a nighttime outing to a club, brunch, the beach…

“I’ve never been to a club,” Kylo explained as Armitage mulled over his list – stored in a datapad, not written on paper or flexiplast. Those could get lost. Besides, he must preserve the sanctity of paper. “Neither have you. We should try it once. I’m thirty years old and married, but I still want to go to one. You can judge everybody there for being degenerate. You’ll enjoy that.”

“ _Stop_!” said Armitage. Kylo had made him laugh before his voice healed. He coughed.

“No talking,” said Kylo. “Shhhh.” He pressed a finger to Armitage’s lips. Armitage pursed them. “Shhhhhh. You have to be able to yell at them.”

_Who?_ thought Armitage.

“All of them,” said Kylo. “Our troops, the officers, the Resistance… me…”

The flight to Chandrila should have been pleasant. Armitage and Kylo should have let all their concerns stay behind on the _Finalizer_. They did not. The flight to Chandrila was fraught with tense silence. Kylo tried to make one-sided verbal conversation. He need not have. He could have projected anything he wanted to Armitage and sensed the feelings and queries from his conscious thoughts that he had to respond with. But the silence stifled them.

Kylo had been right. They had the right to enjoy themselves and a honeymoon should be good for them. But Armitage was also right. A honeymoon was the wrong course of action. They sat side by side through _Two Ships in Passing,_ looking down over the circular stage with seating all around it, and Armitage would never remember the plot or any of the characters or even what the sets looked like. They sat next to each other at dinner in a private booth. Nobody knew that it was Supreme Leader Ren showing Grand Marshal Hux how to take the shell off his crustacean delicacy without breaking any shards into the meat. Kylo pulled his hair into a bun and Armitage had his down. Kylo had him disguised in a robe and hood of cobalt blue, and himself in a cream-colored shirt and slacks of snow-sky grey. The robe was elegant and beautiful and held no interest for Armitage whatsoever. Every element of distraction and dalliance only drove into his consciousness that soon, they would face their foes in battle.

Kylo would face Rey in battle.

What he felt was not jealousy. Kylo had proven himself to Armitage. He could not say when, but no doubt remained in him of Kylo’s devotion. Unless Kylo did something to give him suspicion later, Armitage would not suspect.

It was _fear_.

“Armitage?”

Kylo had a large chunk of meat, steaming ever so slightly, between his thumb, forefinger, and middle finger. Rich, buttery sauce had started to ooze down it and onto his hand. Armitage opened his mouth and let Kylo feed him. The meat had a flakey quality to it. It broke apart in his mouth. The sauce was sweet and smooth on his tongue. Kylo licked the drip of sauce off his hand.

Armitage should have felt excited.

After wiping his hand on a cloth napkin, Kylo looked into his eyes. He might have sensed Armitage’s feelings. He might not. Armitage could not always tell. But one way or another, Armitage told Kylo everything he needed to say, and everything Kylo needed to know.

“I don’t want to go out, either,” Kylo admitted.

It was true, not merely an appeasement. They finished their meal in unhurried silence, stubbornly determined to enjoy themselves. Armitage smelled the sea. Salt. Life. Death and decay. Industry. The sunset changed from pink and blue, to pink and orange, to pink and violet, to black. The wind picked up as the sky darkened, tugging at his hood and then whipping his hair when he took the hood off. He pushed he empty bucket which had contained his dinner (so undignified) away and leaned on one elbow to stare at the choppy stretch of sea below them.

Fine dining. Eating a scuttling Chandrilan crab, which had been cooked alive, and a mess of overseasoned root vegetables out of a bucket on a primitive tower of planks, perched above the ocean. It came from the dirt and the wet slop of the sand. _Cuisine_. Kylo made a reservation for this. Armitage felt no malice or contempt toward any of it.

The establishment had a recording of a song Kylo seemed to know crackling faintly through the air. Armitage listened to the lyrics that he sang sporadically under his breath. Pleading. Crying. Cryyyyyying. Dreaming. Promises, kept and broken. Riding through the night to the rescue of a lover. From what? It was unclear. From themself, probably, Armitage imagined. The word “mine” came up several times. On one such occasion Armitage squeezed Kylo’s hand under the table. Not so long ago, Kylo would have stopped in the middle of a line and looked at Armitage in subdued shock. Now, he squeezed Armitage’s hand back without pause.

_Well_ , thought Armitage, _he must not be too terribly uncomfortable, even with my inability to match his enthusiasm_.

In their suite, they sat cross-legged facing each other on the rented bed. The windows overlooking the shoreline to up an entire wall, but the tinted outsides meant no-one could see into the room. If they had, they might expect to see things that were none of their business. What a surprise they would be in for, Armitage thought, if people flying by in speeders saw the two of them instead, fully clothed. A couple of anxious wrecks who thought they had enough self-control to run away from their responsibilities for two days.

Kylo presented him with two boxes. The first, the small one, contained their rings, two unmarked black bands that they would wear under their gloves. The second one was much larger, flat and long, and Kylo seemed not to want to open it. Armitage opened it, knowing what he would find. Two more identical black bands, meant to be worn around their necks. Armitage’s would be hidden under his uniform. Kylo would wear his brazenly, and nobody could stop him. They lay nestled in their case, silver rings and fasteners shining with the two keys between them.

How stupid. How frivolous, thought Armitage, as he looked at them, which must be why Kylo had not wanted to open the case. It angered him, but he was not angry at Kylo. Kylo probably had these made before Armitage even agreed to marry him. They had never discussed this, although that did not anger him either. Their relationship was so intertwined with the First Order and its goals that they could not have discussed the question of collars. Their relationship was a weapon. A shield. An asset. An affirmation of their rightful eminence and a path to greater power. And it was so complicated, but it was so simple… how could they ever _begin_ to talk about this?

Armitage was angry at the Resistance. He wanted to put that collar around Kylo’s neck, there, then, that night, and he wanted to enjoy it. He wanted to relish the full significance of ending his search for his partner, to tell Kylo that he was good and brave and strong and that Armitage was proud of him.

Kylo moved Armitage’s hand away from the box and closed it.

“I know,” he said.

“You don’t understand – ”

Armitage’s voice had started to return. The prescription from Nebarra in medbay worked fast. Kylo covered his mouth regardless.

“Don’t. Don’t use your voice until you _need_ it.”

“I need to use it _now_!” Armitage insisted. His voice cracked when he raised it and it still sounded dry, but he could speak. “Kylo. I can’t give this to you tonight, even though you’ve earned it. And it’s because of the Resistance. It’s because of this war. I can’t stop thinking about it. When I put this around your neck, I want everything I am to be given to you with it. Everything I have to give!”

“Shhh, I know. I know how you feel, Armitage.”

“No!” Armitage barked. “I need to _say_ it! I’m – ”

“No! I asked you, not until – !”

“I’m _sorry_!”

“What?”

They were both surprised to hear him say it. Both had expected something else. Salline hummed below them, cut with the whirr of speeders.

“I’m sorry,” Armitage said again.

Kylo’s eyes narrowed. He cupped Armitage’s cheek. “I can feel that you’re sorry, but… you have nothing to be sorry for. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I don’t allow you to care for me.” He sounded childish, the same as he did when he broke the scene after their wedding… or when he asked Brendol if he might, one day, find love.

“That’s not… Armitage, you do understand that that’s not your fault, don’t you?” Kylo answered him with no hesitation.

Part of Armitage had the instinct to bark at him to stop looking so damned concerned about everything. That was what he had to silence within him. “I don’t deserve that collar.”

“Yes,” said Kylo. “You do. And if you don’t, then I don’t deserve mine, because I haven’t learned to care for you. Sir.”

Armitage cringed. “Don’t call me that ever again.”

“Maybe someday. After the war. When we can give these to each other.”

“…perhaps.”

“Armitage.”

Kylo pushed the box away and embraced him.

“I know so much about you now, Armitage. I know that you’ve been beset all your life by monsters. I know that I’m one of those monsters, and if I’m not, I was once. I know that you say things you don’t mean. I know that you’ve endured more than anyone else I’ve ever met. I know that you saw things when you were stranded on a ball of sand that bar you from being like me. You’re not a warrior. You can’t see blood. You can’t see death, not up close. Not even in the name of justice.”

Armitage’s eyes went wide as he tried to remember the atrocity of Jakku for the first time since he left it. He never thought of it. He forbade himself—

“I know that’s why you flinched when you watched the man who beat you and told you were worthless die in a bacta tank. I know I can’t stand to give you those memories back, because that would make me as bad as him.”

“You promised…”

“Well, I meant it at the time.”

Armitage smacked his fist against Kylo’s chest. At least, he meant to smack his fist against Kylo’s chest. As it happened, he moreso _patted_ his fist against Kylo’s chest.

“Do you want them back?” asked Kylo.

“No,” said Armitage.

Kylo paused and rubbed Armitage’s back before he continued. “I know that Brendol Hux made you who you are, but I’m helping you become who you were meant to be. It’s not your fault.”

“But I have to do it myself. It’s not enough for you to help me. I have to do it…”

“But it’s still not your fault.”

Silence fell between them. Armitage’s throat stung. In a moment, he would treat it again. He should stop talking. But much like Kylo on the flight to Chandrila, he wanted to talk. About anything. Anything but the war. They had worked and slaved for their Galaxy, for their Order, to ensure that the Resistance had no chance of victory, and yet, Armitage was terrified to send Kylo into battle.

“What about you?” he asked Kylo. “Haven’t you any concerns?”

“No,” said Kylo.

Armitage curled his upper lip. “None?”

“I’ve had everything I need since the beginning.”

Something about his answer and his calm unnerved Armitage. He frowned and looked into Kylo’s eyes, searching for a different answer. _Any_ different answer. He felt certain Kylo was wrong. That, or lying.

“I have had everything I need since the beginning,” Kylo repeated, with quiet confidence.

“The beginning?” asked Armitage. “Of us?”

“That’s right,” said Kylo.

Armitage did not want to ask. He did not know what answer he thought he might receive. Still afraid of uncertainty. He knew Kylo thought that, because it was true. He decided to prove him wrong. “What did you need?”

“Hope,” said Kylo.

_Oh_. “For the future of the First Order,” said Armitage, relieved to hear it. “Of course. Yes.”

“No,” said Kylo.

“No?!”

“No.”

“Then for what?”

“For myself,” said Kylo.

Armitage found his voice quite gone. He swallowed. Hope. For himself. It should touch him. Did Armitage perceive it as the threat of more explicit emotional expression that would hack away at his crumbling armor of conditioning? Or was it truly as ominous as it sounded to him?

“I’m not alone anymore. You’re here. With you on my side… I can do anything now, Armitage. I can’t be called by the light. It can’t reach me now. There’s nothing there for me there anymore. There is no temptation. There hasn’t been since I came to know that you wanted me.”

“That I _wanted_ you?”

“Yes,” said Kylo. “Even your desire was enough to empower me. But now… Armitage, I know your heart. I can feel what you feel. It radiates from you. You shine with it. _Nothing_ can stop me now. Nothing can stop _us_. Especially not her.”

“Kylo… I…”

“I know you have your doubts,” said Kylo. “I can feel your fear. You’re not good at hiding yourself from me. You never have been. But I’m not worried about your doubts. I can prove you wrong. I _will_ , soon. You’ll see that I’m unstoppable because of you. You saved me before you even accepted what we were. What we _are_.”

Armitage still did not know exactly what his fears were grounded _in_. Kylo said beautiful things, but the longer he went on talking the less assured Armitage felt. Neither of them slept that night. They left Chandrila a day early, right after breakfast, still in silence.

Armitage’s mood had not improved, but Kylo’s had changed drastically. Their talk reassured _him_. Yesterday, he had been as troubled as Armitage, as if by unpleasant, incomplete knowledge of the future. He no longer needed to fill the silence with words. _He_ felt confident about the impending battle.

Nothing could console Armitage.

Not even the sight of their false Starkiller Base.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: In this chapter, Armitage holds Kylo to an ultimatum that if he wishes to marry him, he must pretend to take him by force on their wedding night. Kylo accepts. However, Armitage quickly realizes he is in over his head, and worry not - Kylo stops the roleplay when he realizes the same.


	10. Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're just here for the FinnRey, you're valid and I support you.

“As I’ve said before,” said Rey. “Master Skywalker has informed me that the second Starkiller Base is fake.”

She made eye contact with each of the three friends she had asked to meet with her – Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, and Finn, formerly known as FN-2187. They nodded their understanding. Rey scratched a stylus across an oversized screen a little too hard. She had not yet grown accustomed to using them. Nonetheless, she scraped out _second Starkiller Base = trap_ and turned once again to look at the trio of her fellow Resistance fighters.

“But you and General Organa are still planning an attack,” said Rose.

“Yes,” said Rey. She did not try to conceal it.

“What better time to ambush the First Order’s forces than when they think they’re ambushing us?” Poe pointed out.

“Exactly,” said Rey. “They won’t send their whole fleet. They’ve seen a lot of new recruits since…” Since Crait. Since word of Luke Skywalker and his sacrifice spread from world to world like a thief in the night. “…since Kylo Ren became Supreme Leader, but they also have a Galaxy to keep scared.”

“But so have we!” said Poe. “Seen new recruits, I mean. If we can trick them into thinking they can trick us, we can get the jump on them. They don’t know that we have allies now.”

“Ye – ” Rey began.

“But why take that risk?” asked Rose. Her tone held no accusation, but the tone of her next words definitely would if she did not receive a satisfactory answer.

“I’ve asked the three of you to come here so that I can tell you why I think it’s a risk we have to take,” said Rey.

Rose stayed bolt upright in her chair. Poe leaned forward with his chin in his hand – he had been sold on the idea since he realized they could catch Ren and Hux in their own trap, but he was interested in hearing Rey’s line of thinking. She noticed that they sat diametrically across from one another at the large round table with one broken leg. Poe led the attack that killed Paige Tico. It was a strange sentence to think of, to Rey. She thought she ought to think, “Poe led the attack where Paige Tico sacrificed herself to destroy a Dreadnaught.” because Poe and Paige were on the same side. But that was the only way she could _feel_ the sentence in her mind. To Rey’s knowledge, the two of them never addressed it. Rose pulled through her injuries with the help of the supplies on the _Falcon_. When she awoke, Rey and Poe were there, with Finn.

Finn, who had not spoken after initially greeting Rey, rested his head on his folded arms. He sat directly across from where Rey stood and halfway between Poe and Rose with three or four chairs in between him and each of them. Despite his posture, he kept his eyes fixed on Rey’s face and listened attentively to every word she said.

“Kylo Ren has to be stopped,” Rey said bluntly. “And every day he isn’t stopped, the…” She paused. She shook her head. She closed her eyes and started over, so that she could speak to a void, and not to the faces of people she cared about. “ _I_ have to stop Kylo Ren. Every day that _I_ don’t stop Kylo Ren, the consequences of not stopping him become worse. People are dying. People are losing hope. Children are being born. General Organa told me that… that part of the reason the First Order was able to be built was because children were born in the Empire and grew up with it. We can’t let that happen.”

“There’s no such thing as the right time,” said Poe.

So struck was Rey with the truth of his words that she turned and looked at him. They held each other’s eyes for several seconds. Rey had paused in her speech, although she had much more to say – more swirled through her mind, terrifying and unable to be shaped into spoken, communicable form. The more she thought of facing Ren once and for all, the more right it felt. The solution to everything, to the war, to her own fear, to the growing terror that was the Galaxy around her, was to face and defeat him.

“If you keep waiting for that perfect opportunity, where there’s no risk and everything’s guaranteed to go right,” Poe went on. “You’ll be waiting forever. I agree with everything you’ve said so far, Rey. You’re right to want to do this.”

“Thank you,” said Rey. They shared a cause but no one, thought Rey, could ever share what she alone faced in herself and in Ren – nothing could touch the unwanted bond forced on the two of them. The now-dead Snoke told them that he had forged the bond, but Rey knew he was more a tool of something greater than himself than he thought Kylo Ren was of his. Poe’s words validated her resolve, but they could not truly make her feel better or even different about her… not her choice. It was not really a choice. “This isn’t a question, to me, of… of when I can face him with the least risk to myself.”

“It’s not a question _at all_ of when is the strategically correct time to take him out,” said Poe, firmly, correcting her. “This is about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

“It’s not a question of when I can face him with the least risk to myself!” Rey declared, shaking herself a little. “It’s the right thing to do, because the longer I wait the more harm I’m doing in not facing him! A-and not just because of him, I don’t like what I – !”

She stopped short of revealing something she had never told anyone except for Master Skywalker. As he guided her as best he could he also lent her his support, but as they both felt the time of confrontation drawing near, they found there was increasingly little he could do. Rey knew that soon he would leave her. He would pass on.

Finn had sat up. He had never taken his eyes off Rey. Rose, who had been looking back and forth between Rey and Poe, had her brow furrowed and her face scrunched up with trying to guess at what Rey would have said.

“What don’t you like, Rey?” asked Finn. Rey had not expected to hear him speak. When he did, she knew that he already knew what she would say.

“My… _strength_ in the Force grows as Ren’s does. The opposite is true, too. You know that. I don’t _want_ to call it my power in the Force, or my strength in the Force, but I don’t know what else to call it. If what I feel in myself now reflects what Ren has become we can’t let him keep gaining power like this. I don’t like… how I feel,” said Rey. “I don’t like this. No-one should have power like this. I don’t want any more, and I don’t want him to have any more either.”

Rey looked at her three friends again. Poe still wore the same look of determination, wanting to express solidarity with her. Rose was nodding, and her brow had relaxed into somber understanding and acceptance.

But Finn looked at her with sadness. Rey looked at him for a few seconds longer than she meant to. _I know_ , she thought, _I know you want to take some of this away from me, but you can’t, nobody can…_

“What do you think he’s capable of?” asked Rose.

Rey had what she thought was the answer to Rose’s question, but before responding she considered it. She decided that she believed it enough to say out loud. “I don’t actually know. I don’t believe he knows, either. Right now, I don’t think there is any number of Stormtroopers who could stand against me. So that means that there is no number of people who could stand up to Kylo Ren. But,” she added. “I don’t _want_ to kill Stormtroopers.”

“You just want to kill Kylo Ren,” said Poe. A grim joke.

“I’m not supposed to want to kill,” Rey pointed out. “That’s not the Jedi way.” She said it with something bordering on flippancy, and her friends noticed it.

“But you want to kill him,” Poe reiterated.

“Of course I want to kill him,” said Rey. “I want to stop what he represents from spreading. I want to keep another Ben Solo or another Anakin Skywalker from throwing away his life.”

This answer satisfied them as much as any answer could.

“I know their whole plan,” she said. “Master Skywalker told me. He’s been watching them. And I know Ren’s weaknesses. He is what matters most. Once he knows that his plan to ambush us has failed, he’ll be easy to bait. He’ll come to me. I want to minimize damages on both sides… Ren is a symbol. If I can take him…” Rey had begun talking faster, jumping around from one thought to the next. She, Skywalker, and General Organa had been over and over _everything_ to do with the coming duel, to the point where it sat in her mind like a giant knot, all the ideas involved being tangled strings. It clogged up any other thought she tried to have until they as well became part of the knot. It only grew.

“They’ll see he’s not a god,” said Poe. “His troops, his worshippers, _and_ the people he’s oppressed.”

“But can you beat him?” asked Finn. It was only the second time he had spoken.

“Of _course_ she can beat him!” Poe cried.

“How can anybody know that?” asked Finn. “Have you seen it? Has Skywalker seen it?”

Rey knew that he had not asked the question from a place of doubt. “It’s not a question of the risk to myself,” she repeated.

Finn did not respond, and he did not need to. _So_ , his look said, _nobody has seen who wins the fight that matters most._

“I haven’t seen myself defeat Ren,” said Rey. “And I haven’t seen Ren defeat me. I know that I will face him in his own trap. I know that I will provoke him to rage. But what _matters_ is that I know I must.”

Again, Finn did not respond. Nothing in his look could be translated into words.

“Um,” said Rose, hesitantly intruding with a half-raised hand. “What makes you think that Ren doesn’t know how strong he’s gotten?”

“A few things,” said Rey. “I haven’t had contact with Ren.” She had never spoken of it, but since she never gave any indication she still had contact with him, the others were not surprised. “We willingly closed the bond between us. We made an agreement.” She huffed. “Of course, he opened it again right away to prove he _could_ …”

“Don’t think about him as anything but your opponent,” said Finn.

Right. “I can still feel him. Like I’m in a room and he’s on the other side of a locked door. So if he were to die, I _think_ I would know that, but I'm not _entirely_ certain, and when I… become more attuned to the Force, I can feel him doing it too. It’s awful.” She chose not to think of how awful it was, and instead to think of Ren only as her opponent, which he was. “Furthermore, I don’t believe I could test myself at this point. Not without causing more destruction than I would ever wish to cause.”

“Never stopped him,” said Finn.

It suddenly struck Rey that Finn would have known Kylo Ren before any of them had - well, perhaps Poe knew Ben Solo, but that wasn't quite the same as Kylo Ren. He would have known General Hux as well. Grand Marshal Hux, he was now. He never spoke of his time in the First Order with her, only with General Organa, who could tactfully navigate conversations in ways that minimized painful memories for Finn.

“Hux,” she said abruptly, which to the other three came as a complete non sequitur and also cause for open disgust.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” said Rose.

“No,” said Rey. “Listen. The most important thing is that I stop Ren. But after him, the most important thing is Hux, he has to be stopped too. We’re meant to think that he’s the one telling Ren what to do – he wants me to feel sorry for him and think Hux is manipulating him, Master Skywalker told me – but in a way, he _is_ the one pulling the strings.”

Poe finished her thought. “Ren _only_ has good public relations because of Hux’s propaganda machine. If anyone could take the death of the Supreme Leader and spin it into a rousing speech, it’s Hux. He’s a symbol too.”

Rey took a deep breath. “I have said that I want to bait Ren into a duel and minimize casualties on both sides. However – ”

“We’ll take him out.”

Of course, Poe had said it. The promise carried an implication: that they would take out Hux even if it meant the risk or cost of their own lives. Poe spoke for the other two (completely out of turn) but the other two did not protest. Not even Finn – who had every reason to want to fire a blaster on Armitage Hux, but who also had every reason to want to preserve himself right before his eyes.

“I am asking for your help,” she clarified. “I am asking you this because it will help me and the Resistance.”

“Anyone in the Resistance would say yes,” said Rose.

“But I couldn’t ask them to help me like that,” said Rey. “Because… because you three are…”

She could not finish while she stood at the threshold of her great trial. She found that she was gripping the back of a chair and that her knuckles had gone white. Rey pulled the chair back from the table and sat in it. She had talked with them for some time.

Her whole existence had come to revolve around the singular event waiting in her future. If it was not Master Skywalker or her training or her meditation, it was General Organa, who maneuvered around the reality of Kylo Ren’s past as deftly as she maneuvered around the details of Finn’s past. And if it was neither of them, it was the constant, nagging, gnaw on her nerves because she failed to spend every single moment either rushing to end the reign of the First Order or else stave off the feeling of failure by talking in circles about it and amplifying Ren and herself to deific levels.

If she proved to the Galaxy that Ren was no god after all, she would be deceiving them. He all but was one.

“Thanks,” she said instead. “Thank you for being here. With me. I know that it may not seem to you as though we had to meet, but…”

“We understand, Rey,” said Poe.

“I needed to say it to someone,” said Rey. She slumped onto the table, resting her head in her arms as Finn had initially done. There was more that she _felt_ as though needed to say to someone. Much more. Because in truth she did not _need_ to say as much as she had. She only allowed herself to say what she desperately wanted to say to someone. She knew, because she felt it in the Force, that she had information she must not reveal, and that she had made decisions she must tell no one about. After a moment, she excused herself and left them. She said that she was to meet with General Organa. This was true, but the meeting was not scheduled until late afternoon, when they often had tea together.

Finn found himself left with Rose and Poe. Under most circumstances, he would enjoy their company. On this occasion, he waited three minutes, counting out the seconds in his head.

“I need to go,” he told them after a silent three minutes. “I have to…”

As he tried to come up with some excuse, the other two turned to look at him, not smiling or smirking and not disapproving of him. He gave up on the excuse. He did not have one, and he did not need one. He owed excuses to no one, as he would have said to Rey if she felt like she needed to give an excuse for something. They knew where he intended to go. Finn need not insult his friends’ intelligence.

“I need to go,” Finn repeated, and he went.

Rose and Poe found themselves alone. Both of them stared at where Rey had written _second Starkiller Base = trap_. Likely, she had meant to write out other points as the conversation progressed, or so it seemed from the amount of space she left herself.

“I can’t even be mad,” said Rose.

“Yeah,” said Poe.

 

The Resistance hid itself throughout the many moons and obscure planets of the Outer Rim now. They split up. They took jobs – except for the most wanted of public enemies, namely Rey and Leia Organa. It was dangerous for her to go outside. When she isolated herself to re-forge the lightsaber, it had been easy. When she returned again to her friends, it hurt to look them in the eyes.

The success of the Resistance depended on all of their re-grown numbers mobilizing when called upon. But did it really? Rey didn’t want to say that her defeat of Kylo Ren was all that mattered. She knew it was not true. It would sound as though she was bragging, although she would not have meant to brag if she said it. She hated everything about the task ahead of her.

She never wanted to look at Ren’s scowling, pasty face with its empty eyes again. What a bore he must be, she thought, if one thought of him as something besides their enemy. What a bore Hux must find him. What a wailing siren of a man he must find Hux. Not the kind of siren on Ahch-to, but the kind that alerted people to intruders. Then again, their union was probably only a political gesture. She would be naïve to think anything else. She knew what marriage could be twisted to mean. Even on Jakku, where people had nothing, they bound themselves together in the name of what meager power they could grasp or material comforts, for a lifetime, for a year, for a night…

Although she never asked him to follow her, Rey knew that Finn would follow her. She waited a few feet from the door of the kitchen belonging to the farmer who took Finn, Poe, and Rose into employment and courageously shared his otherwise quiet life with the work of the Resistance. The four of them met in his kitchen after the end of a work day. When she heard the door open, it briefly occurred to her that it might not be Finn – but it was Finn. Without speaking, she turned and began walking away, with every intention that he would follow her.

He did.

Rey did not go to see General Organa. She would not go to see General Organa that afternoon. She suspected as much when she started leading Finn away, but had nothing to support her suspicions yet except a hunch and a vague set of intentions. Instead, she went through the door to the farmer’s basement, then further underground.

The handful of Resistance members hiding on this specific tiny moon had their ships stored in a cave. The cave could be accessed by a series of tunnels with their openings in the houses of the local population, or by its wide mouth overlooking the sea. The mouth and the cave were both big enough to pilot a few small fighters into. As she looked at them and thought of the other ships sleeping in caves and valleys and in the middle of wastelands through this stretch of the Outer Rim, she remembered the early days of panic when the First Order consolidated all the major means of production and distribution of the instruments of war throughout the Galaxy. No longer would profiteers live lavishly, stepping on the backs of those who were killed and maimed in war. Nobody would sell to both sides. Places like Cantonica with the glittering city of Canto Bight, that Finn and Rose told her their story of, were crumbling. They were no longer sustainable. The market was drying up.

Rey supposed that it was an ill wind that didn’t blow _some_ good, or something… there was a saying like that on Jakku. She did not feel sorry for the upper crust whose livelihood was hobbled by the First Order it supported – served them right! – and she could not imagine how anyone could find happiness in wealth gained in such a way. But it prevented the Resistance from buying more supplies, which in turn prevented them from finding support… but they found ways. Their ships were old. Their weapons were not state of the art. But they found ways, and they knew that they were right. As Rey let her hand fall on the lightsaber that she and General Organa repaired with guidance from Master Skywalker, speaking to them from within the Force itself, Rey thought that had to count as much as a whole fleet of Star Destroyers.

And the First Order would find an even more destructive use for Cantonica and everyone who lived there, she thought with trepidation, unless she prevented Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux from planting the seeds of their influence.

It was through this cave that Rey kept walking, right out to the rock face over the water. It reminded her of Ahch-to, and therefore she liked it. Due to liking it too much she tended to avoid it. She had not known she was walking to the mouth of the cave when she started walking. It took her reaching a small craft, outdated and worse for wear, to realize that she wanted to be there.

Without turning around she sat on a more forgiving patch of the ground and waited for Finn to sit beside her. For a long time, neither of them spoke. Rey had to admit to herself that against all better knowledge, she was nervous.

“Sometimes,” she finally said. “Sacrifices have to be made.”

“Hi,” said Finn.

Rey laughed. “Sometimes, those sacrifices are people’s lives.”

“Don’t say that,” Finn told her sharply. “You’re not going to sacrifice yourself.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” said Rey. “I was thinking of Master Skywalker and General Organa.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

Rey had difficulty articulating her thoughts. No matter what Skywalker and Organa did, she thought, it was never enough. People looked to them as heroes. They had tried all their lives, and ultimately, Skywalker satisfied people more as a dead man, where he could be their symbol, than as a living one who tried his best and made mistakes.

“I’m going to defeat Kylo Ren,” she said instead, because she did not know how to explain it to Finn. “I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Finn reminded her. “You’re a person. _I’m_ here because I _want_ to be here.”

Rey took a moment to breathe. For some reason, Finn’s words came as a great comfort to her. “Thank you.”

“Let me face him with you again.”

“I can’t do that.”

Finn sighed, still anxious and frustrated and wishing he could do anything to give her real assistance. “I know you can’t.”

For a longer time, all was silent except for the crashing of waves. Rey stared at them, because to stop staring at them would mean to turn and look at Finn. She snuck glances at him. She felt confident that he was sneaking glances at her, too.

“I didn’t hear you say you’re planning to kill him,” Finn said, much later.

“You’re right,” said Rey.

She heard the shift of Finn’s clothing against itself and the ground as he turned to face her. “Why?”

“Certainly not because he’s General Organa’s son,” said Rey, still looking at the sea. It was easier that way. “And not because I feel any form of pity for him.”

“I know that you don’t,” said Finn. “And I really admire that about you.”

“Thanks,” said Rey, with a slight smile.

When he responded, she did not hear a smile in his voice: “Then why do you want to spare him?”

“I don’t see it as sparing,” said Rey.

“Is it to make Hux cooperate?”

“If all goes as it should, Hux will be dead.”

“You don’t intend to let Hux live. Just Ren.”

“Yes.”

“Then is it to make the other officers surrender to us? Rey.” Finn moved from sitting cross-legged to sitting knees-up so close to her that she felt his thigh against hers. “I trust you, but I want to know…”

“It’s difficult to explain,” said Rey, but as she said it, she thought of how to begin explaining. “We have to make an example of him. He’s more use to whatever evil will arise in the future dead than alive. We have to keep him alive. At least in the short term.”

She looked at Finn and wished she had not – but she would have had to sooner or later, wouldn’t she. Rey leaned back to rest her weight on her straightened arms and extended her legs in front of her, one ankle crossed over the other. A far cry from the position of mediation she habitually sat in now, but this was no time for meditation. Finn knelt, leaving him effectively taller than her. Rey tilted her head back. She became aware of how it exposed her throat and collarbones.

The mood had changed before it was supposed to.

“Think of it,” she said, trying to restore the mood back to what it had been. “Darth Vader turned to the light in his final moments – but what good did it do anyone except him and his son? Everything he destroyed was still destroyed. Nobody remembers Anakin Skywalker.”

“They remember Darth Vader,” said Finn, nodding thoughtfully.

“And that’s who Ben Solo chose to look up to,” said Rey. “Not the Jedi, Skywalker.”

“So you want to keep that from happening again,” said Finn. “If he dies, he’s still a symbol that the First Order can use. Like they did with Phasma.”

“Maybe not even the First Order,” said Rey. Her elbows and neck started to hurt and the mood had been successfully de-escalated. She raised herself onto one hip, facing Finn. “In twenty or thirty years, it could be someone else, who knows.”

“But then how do you want history to remember him?” asked Finn. “As Ben Solo? As General Organa’s son?”

“No,” said Rey. “I want history to remember him as the feckless wretch he is.”

Finn looked at her as though he might laugh. Whether the aborted laugh was of shock or delight, she did not know. But he looked at her as if she had definitive, devious, secret proof that she could undo the whole of the First Order with a snap of her fingers.

“Don’t laugh,” she said. “I’m serious. He must stand trial.”

“No, no, I understand now.” Finn still looked as though he might laugh – did she not intend to make a joke of Kylo Ren, with his made-up name and his self-victimizing nature? Over the passing months, Rey had called him pasty, petulant… In spite of his heinous deeds and the grave nature of them, in spite of the fact that Kylo Ren was _not_ a joke and Finn knew first hand, Finn found it almost too easy to think of Ren as a joke himself.

“We have to keep anyone from being able to look up to him,” Rey insisted. “That’s why I mustn’t kill him.”

“But,” said Finn. “You’ll have to be the one to guard him. Nobody else could do it.”

“I can stand it,” said Rey.

“I’ll be jealous,” said Finn.

“You can’t possibly be,” said Rey, mildly incredulous, and suddenly she found that they were looking into each other’s eyes again. “You… you can’t be jealous of…”

“You’re right,” said Finn. “I’d never think to be jealous of him.”

She listened to both of them breathing and felt her own heart pound. “I…”

“Yes?”

“I, I’ve seen… I’ve seen more than I told you…” she confessed. Even before the words came out, it seemed so insignificant. Poe had been right. Of course she could defeat Ren. No visions from the Force were necessary. She knew, as surely as she knew that Finn was right in front of her, that Ren was no match for her. “I’ve seen him… I have both of our lightsabers, and…”

“And you’ve won?”

“I’ve knocked him on his ass,” said Rey.

“Knock him on his ass once for me,” said Finn, smiling warmly.

“I will,” said Rey. “I will do that for you.”

“And I’ll do anything I can to help you,” Finn added. “Or anything you let me do to help you. You know that, right? You know I’d do anything?”

“You may,” said Rey.

“May what?” asked Finn.

“Do anything,” said Rey, letting her eyelids fall shut.

He gave her plenty of time to stop him, in case there had been some miscommunication. There had been none. He stopped outright with his hand cupping the back of her neck. She only enjoyed the feeling of warmth in it and the calluses on his palm. He looked at her face, searching for discomfort or hesitation, and only saw her trying not to smile too much so that he could kiss her. He first kissed the neck which she had bared to him minutes ago. At this, she stopped smiling and made a sound which even to her own ears must have come out of a mouth that deserved to be kissed.

After she kissed him back, whispered his name hoarsely, and was kissed again, he took her hand and frowned.

“You’re shaking.”

“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in months.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m happier than I’ve ever been!”

“Have you…” Finn stopped himself from asking.

“Have I?” Rey prompted, scritching her fingertips with their cut-short nails over the cropped hair on the back of his head. His arms were securely about her waist, and she felt as though she was no difficulty for him to hold up at all.

“Have you done this before?” he asked. “I just want to make sure that… that you’re okay, and…”

“I am okay,” said Rey. “I have done this before. But it wasn’t like _this_.” She _beamed_. _This_ was something new and exciting and an unequivocal delight.

This surprised Finn, but did not seem to either please or displease him. It was simply not what he anticipated hearing. “Oh. I thought – well. I have also done this before,” he informed her. “But it was not like this. It’s never like this in the First Order.”

“I don’t want to talk about the First Order for at least the next hour,” said Rey.

“Done,” said Finn. “What _do_ you want to… well, what do _you_ want to do, Rey?”

“Right here. Immediately.”

This also surprised Finn, but also did not displease him. “Right now?”

“Right now,” Rey affirmed.

Rey did not make a habit of intruding into the minds of others. She often sensed vague impressions of surface thoughts, but would feel deep discomfort pushing aside the barriers between another’s mind and her own. At that moment, she could sense strongly from Finn the suspicion that she had lied – that she had _not_ done this before and simply wanted him not to fuss over her, and that she wanted anything less than to do it right here, immediately. Rey swung her leg across Finn’s lap, not gracefully, but with a kind of efficiency. He would soon see that he had thought wrong. She had not lied about anything.

Finn was left looking up at Rey as she positioned herself across his lap. “Rey,” he asked, once and for all. “Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” said Rey. “This is what I want.”

“It’s what I want, too,” said Finn, and what might have happened next was nobody else’s business.

Whatever they did, Finn later reflected that first and foremost, Rey had not lied to him about anything.

Secondly, she made no apology for her actions as she carried them out. Nothing in her said that she regretted anything. Obviously, there was no reason she would owe _him_ any kind of apology, but some people might think that they owed and apology for haste or ownership of their desires to a higher power or the rest of sentience. She never denied wanting to kill Ren, either. When he questioned why he should connect the two mentally he realized that it was because both the desire to be with him and the desire to end Ren’s life (even though she had instead found a way to simply end his influence without killing him) were selfish and would break the old Jedi Code. Attachment, anger, hate… she had told him about some of the old teachings, but until now the importance of abolishing the old ways had not been fully revealed to him.

Rey’s attachment to him and their friends and her loathing of Ren would only make Rey stronger. They were both grounded in the virtues of her character that made her who she was. The same qualities in her that made her want to sleep with him and destroy her enemy were what made her everything Finn had never been able to know that he wanted, because the brainwashing both the older and younger Hux subjected him to denied him the frame of thought to articulate it. When he left the First Order, he had been searching for those things, even without fully knowing what they were. He had been searching for Rey.

“Rey,” he whispered. He thought she might have fallen asleep already. “Rey, are you asleep?”

“Mm-mm…” said Rey, sounding very sleepy.

“Rey, you are everything I could never have known I wanted to see in the world until I met you.”

Rey opened her eyes. It took some effort, but if she had not wanted to open them she would have grunted again and kept them shut. “What?”

“You are everything I never knew I wanted to see in the world,” Finn repeated. “And I could never have known what it was I wanted in my life so bad until I met you.”

“ _Finn_ ,” said Rey in an awed whisper. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard anyone say about anybody.”

“Well, it’s true,” said Finn. “And I just said it about you.”

“Oh, Finn…”

With even greater effort, so much that she had to grunt with each turn of her body, Rey rolled over towards him twice. They had separated to catch their breaths and not moved since. Now, she was pressed against him again, but it was nothing like before, and definitely _nothing_ like what it had been in the First Order. Or, he would guess, on Jakku, which he made up his mind never to ask Rey about.

“I lo… o…” She yawned. “…I love you.”

“What.” It was a natural thing for her to say in such a situation, and he had known that it was the truth (why else would she have led him out here?) and yet once again Finn was surprised. But _far_ from displeased.

“I said I love you,” said Rey. “I think.”

“You think?”

“I do. I think that must be what this is.”

Again, she made no apologies for herself – and she did not inquire if Finn returned her feelings. “I love you too,” he said, because it was true and because he remembered to say it out loud. “I think this must be it.”

“Yeah,” said Rey, laid her head on his chest, and promptly fell asleep.

That, too, made her stronger than Kylo Ren, thought Finn. She had said she loved him without hesitation once the issue had been otherwise addressed. Like Finn, she had not said it right away because she considered it understood, abundantly clear, something to be acted on at long last. It had not needed to be said. After half a year, both of them could be sure of themselves, but he suspected she would have done the same at any time if he had approached her.

That made her stronger than Kylo Ren. He did not possess what she possessed. The two of them were closer to Ren than any other members of the Resistance – well, he thought, except the man’s mother, and someone’s mother was not the person to assess this specific strength. Rey’s mind had been linked with Ren’s (he shuddered to think) and in Finn’s old life, Ren had been a constant, lurking cloud of destruction, lethally offended over some slights and scoffing at others.

Whatever Ren had with Hux, it was not this. Those two hated each other _infamously_ – but then again, thought Finn, maybe things had changed, or maybe they somehow thrived on their hate for each other. Maybe it was real, in its own way. He thought that if there existed _anyone_ in the entire universe rotten and twisted and evil enough to possibly want one of them, it was the other of them. Maybe they were everything they never knew they wanted in their lives until they got the chance to know they wanted each other. Disgusting, but not implausible.

But even if it was “real, in its own way” (and Finn did not believe it was) Ren did not have what Rey had on her side, in her heart, shining out of her.

He looked at what he could see of her face with its cheek pressed into his bare chest and at her hip and leg folded over him. She was a hero. She was the hero who would drag the tyrant down from the top of the First Order and bring the whole machine to pieces with him. And she was, in his opinion, the greatest hero who had ever lived or would ever live. She was _his_ hero.


	11. Eleven

The Supreme Leader wore a shirt proper, and it was worth taking note of: tucked into his pants, held up with a belt, covering all of his torso and arms except the open top. His Grand Marshal could not help but shake his head. Gone were the stifling-tight robes that appeared so restrictive of Kylo’s movements that he wore under Snoke’s tutelage. In those days Kylo seemed to want the cover of robes, hoods, and cowls as much as he wanted his mask or the abilities he developed to protect his thoughts. All of him needed protection from his former Master. Now, sitting on his throne with Armitage beside him, he had nothing to conceal from anyone. There was no more mask. He had taken to not wearing shirts unless he had to, and even then he tended not to close them. However, he frequently found a spare moment to sling a cape over his shoulders.

On this day, he wore no cape, but he wore a shirt. He was not literally seated on his throne, but he was still the ruler of everything his eye saw in the hangar where his TIE Silencer waited, prepared for him – and that included Armitage Hux, for better or for worse. Armitage could not stop Kylo from getting in the TIE Silencer. With this knowledge, he felt more ruled by this man than he ever had with Kylo in his bed or invading his mind.

It sickened him.

Armitage kept his eyes resolutely above the exposed chest and the pale neck he had gotten used to seeing, but which somehow never quite failed to _call_ his attention even if they did not on specific occasions succeed in stealing it. Kylo had seen him. Armitage knew the look that he wore for a second. He looked at Armitage in many ways. He might look at him as his Master, for Armitage held rule over him as well, or like an errant knight looking at the object of his courtly affection. At that time, Kylo looked at Armitage in the way he looked at the _Horizon_ the first time he saw it, or at the resources they seized for the benefit of the First Order. _That is mine_ , he said without words.

Armitage was his motivation for fighting today, and when he came back he would expect Armitage to hail him as the consort of a victorious hero and returning king should. Despite holding power alongside him, Armitage must pay him a higher tribute than the wealthiest of the planets they conquered.

He glared at Kylo Ren’s infuriatingly calm visage. Armitage felt nothing as he made the walk to the hangar and his husband’s TIE Silencer. The vessel itself filled the empty vessel of his body with icy dread. The man waiting for him next to it turned that dread to a very specific kind of fury.

He elected to open with a simple “Ren.”

“Armitage,” Kylo replied, inclining his head.

It was then that Armitage’s glare boiled to the surface. He turned up his nose and joined his hands behind his back. There, they were in no danger of reaching for Kylo’s hair or any article of clothing. “I suppose you’ll be flying off now.”

“I will,” said Kylo. “But I waited to tell you goodbye.”

“Goodbye, indeed,” said Armitage.

“May I kiss you goodbye?” asked Kylo.

“You may not,” said Armitage.

“I’ll see you once this is over, then.”

Kylo did not seem particularly annoyed by the denial of his goodbye kiss, and this annoyed Armitage more than he expected it to annoy Kylo. “What if you don’t?” asked Armitage. “What if… What if I announce my intent, at this very moment, to stage a coup the minute you’re gone?”

Kylo turned away, but not quickly enough to hide his smile from Armitage.

“I’m going to have you shot down!” said Armitage. His fists were balled at his sides. “Ren!”

The hatch of his craft opened and Kylo swung his leg into it.

“I hate you!” Armitage blurted.

“I know,” said Kylo, although he clearly did not believe him.

“I despise you!” Armitage went on. “How dare you!”

Kylo had disappeared into the TIE Silencer, but his head poked out into the hangar. “How dare I what?”

“How dare you…!” Inside, Armitage felt stretched and twisted at the same time. “You could die!” he spit after a moment. He could die and leave Armitage alone. He could die and everything he showed Armitage about what life could be would die with him. “This is _idiotic_! There is no reason whatsoever for you to go traipsing off with your laser sword and endanger yourself!”

“I have more than a laser sword,” Kylo pointed out.

“The power of love doesn’t count!” Armitage snapped.

“I have this TIE Silencer,” said Kylo.

“Are you going to take that to fight your girl?!”

“No,” Kylo admitted.

“Then you have only your crystal contraption!”

Kylo leaned on his elbow on the edge of the cockpit. “You’re one to talk about contraptions. But I’ll have you know that I have two contraptions.” From the back of his belt, further behind him than he kept his lightsaber, he pulled the angular grey hilt he had offered Armitage long ago.

Armitage averted his eyes as if it were something obscene. “Two contraptions,” he huffed. “Splendid. Put that thing away, I don’t wish to see it.”

“If all else fails,” said Kylo.

“Yes. Excellent. Leave me out of it.”

Kylo put the thing away. “Are you worried about me?”

“Yes!”

“Do you care about me?”

“Y…” It pained him to say it. “Yes!”

Kylo did not answer immediately. He swung himself back out of the TIE Silencer again. “Armitage, I have to face her,” he explained.

“No, you don’t! There is absolutely no reason why you have to face her! Shoot her! Shoot all of them in their one accursed little ship, Ren! Blow the piece of junk out of the sky, have done with them!”

“Do you truly believe that their numbers haven’t grown, Armitage?”

Armitage huffed. “If we’re to ambush them as you’re so confident your stupid plan is going to let us do – ” Kylo shrugged. “Don’t you shrug at me!” Armitage smacked him on the shoulder.

“Perhaps I will,” said Kylo. “Perhaps I’ll never need to see her face again.”

Armitage looked into his eyes. He knew Kylo well enough to know that he believed he would have to duel the scavenger girl. Only one of them would survive. “Have you seen it happen?”

Kylo glanced away. His veneer of serenity flitted away for a moment as he gave real thought to his answer. “I have seen something,” he told Armitage.

Armitage felt his temples throb, faintly, as though a headache had issued him a warning shot. “You have seen something,” he sighed.

“I’m trying to prevent it from happening,” Kylo explained.

“What have you seen?” asked Armitage.

Kylo, again, weighed his answer. “I can’t tell you,” he finally said.

“I am your _husband_ ,” said Armitage.

“And I love you very much,” said Kylo. “Which is why you must stay on this ship and trust me.”

The first part of his statement made Armitage angry against all reason. The second made him downright incensed. The insistence that he trust Kylo nearly induced spontaneous combustion. “I beg your pardon?!”

“As the Supreme Leader, I order you to stay on the _Horizon_ until I give you further orders,” said Kylo, at once turning back to his TIE Silencer. Trying to _run_.

Armitage grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to spin him back around. He succeeded in grabbing his shoulder and stopping his escape, but Kylo did not budge. “I wasn’t going to leave!” But now that Kylo ordered him not to leave, he had half a mind to.

“Those are my orders,” Kylo agreed.

“And furthermore, where do you get the nerve to say you…” Armitage lowered his voice. “…love me?”

Kylo turned to him, frowning. “I’ve been saying so for months.”

“And yet,” said Armitage. “When I try to return your sentiments – ”

Kylo cut him off, as he always did when he tried to return his sentiments. “I’ve told you, not until you can say it when you aren’t consumed by your emotions. Not until there’s no risk of you ever taking it back.”

Armitage wanted to say a lot of things to Kylo. Many of them were insults and profanities, but not all of them. There was no such time as the one he wanted Armitage to wait for. There was always going to be a risk when anybody said those words to anyone. Wasn’t it enough for Kylo that he made Armitage believe in something he openly denounced for years and years? Was that not enough of a victory for him to allow himself the reward of hearing the words that Armitage _knew_ he wanted to hear?

But all that came out was “I— y— ffff—!“

“I know,” Kylo said. His voice was as soft as Armitage had ever heard it. When he spoke that way, all coherent thought melted in Armitage’s mind. It left him only able to feel. With Kylo, it was an adequate means of communication, but left Armitage unable to articulate as _he_ chose. “I know your feelings. You don’t need to say it. Please, try to understand. I’ve… I’ve heard those words before, Armitage. I’ve heard them stated explicitly to me and I’ve had the idea of them put in my mind. Always, they were taken back. Always, they were used to control me and hurt me. I know you’re not like them. I know. But it’s not enough to know. When you finally say it I want to _feel_ that this is different. I need that. I can’t allow there to be any doubt.”

But if he could feel what Armitage felt, why did he need a moment when there was no doubt or chance of retraction left? Armitage was able to answer his own question: because the rational and irrational sides of Kylo’s mind were in conflict. Armitage experienced the same every time he tried to harness his anger to command. But… but it was not the same, he thought, although he could not identify why with Kylo’s forehead pressed against his and Kylo’s hands on his shoulders.

Armitage leaned into him and let his husband’s presence envelop him, but almost as soon as he felt himself surrounded by Kylo, Kylo was gone. Armitage had to clear away from his ship. As he watched him leave, he knew there was something left that he ought to say, but could not say it.

It was not until the TIE Silencer joined the other fighters that Armitage gathered his thoughts enough to remember why Kylo was wrong to demand such things of him. Armitage needed to _say_ it. Out loud. Even though Kylo already knew the truth, Armitage had a need to _express_ it for his own sake. He told him as much in their suite on Chandrila.

It was like what he had felt before the first time he kissed him, or the first time he braved handing over control to him. Kylo could have kissed him without his input or demanded the submission that Armitage secretly wished to allow himself. Armitage would still have felt unsatisfied if he had not been allowed to choose those things for himself. He needed to say the words to Kylo out loud, and he made up his mind then and there that he would tell Kylo so the next time he saw him.

Then, he would do his best to calm his emotions, look him in the eye, take him by the hand, and tell him the truth. He would overcome his resistance to saying the words outside his fits of passion, as Kylo wanted. He would make both of them happy. There. Armitage found a way that neither of them had to sacrifice what he wanted.

Either because Kylo managed to reassure him or because Kylo managed to project feelings of calm onto him, he quelled Armitage’s anxiety about the possibility of losing him. Armitage made his way to the bridge. He visualized himself gliding through the halls of his ship, a slim and dignified figure in pure pristine white. He saw himself standing on the bridge with his head high and his lips curled into a sneer as the Resistance scum perished in the soundless cold of space on the end of his laser fire. After he thought of these things, he could allow himself to envision himself reuniting with a victorious Kylo, taking his champion in his arms, blessing him with his kisses, and whispering everything he wanted to hear.

Armitage smiled. Yes, he wanted to tell Kylo everything that Kylo wanted to hear. It excited him. He wanted Kylo to hear those things from him: that he was good, and that he was brave, and that he had done so well, and that he was loved.

Captain Peavey cleared his throat louder than necessary. “Sir.”

Armitage shook himself back to the reality of the bridge of the _Horizon_. He nodded to Peavey. In the past few months he had begun to get the lurking impression that Edrison Peavey did not, in fact, hate him anymore. As he recalled at his wedding, he knew there had been some kind of incident the night he got drunk. They never discussed it. He knew he and Peavey had exchanged words. But he also knew that they had not been the kindest of words, despite not recalling what even one of the words was. Whatever changed Peavey’s mind could not have been whatever Armitage did and said while intoxicated. It must be, Armitage concluded with a sense of satisfaction, that Peavey grudgingly admitted he and Kylo got things done.

“Captain,” Armitage replied.

“Alright, Sir?” asked Peavey.

“Quite alright,” said Armitage, jutting out his chin.

“I should inform you,” Peavey went on. “That the Supreme Leader’s orders state that you are not under any circumstances to leave this ship.”

Armitage’s lip curled, but he made himself think of Kylo’s feelings. The _Horizon_ was the safest place to be during a battle (short of locking Armitage up somewhere on the other side of the Galaxy, for which Armitage would never have forgiven him). If he was here, Kylo did not have to worry about him and would perform better. “So I’ve been told. I shall obey.”

The two men stood side by side at attention for a few moments in the relative quiet of the bridge. Around them, other officers attended to their posts. There was no sign of the Resistance yet. Their sentries, positioned near the trap, would alert the force Kylo and Armitage had designated to emerge from a hyperspace jump, surround them, ambush them, and destroy them. There was no place in this plan, which was almost entirely of Kylo’s making, for him to face the girl, and yet he insisted on behaving as though he had written it in to the point where Armitage never questioned that he would face her.

“Stupid plan,” he caught himself muttering. “Stupid. Stupid Ren.” And yet he had no reason to think it would not work, except that the Resistance might not make their appearance. They certainly had not made it _yet_. They might sit here for hours, then finally give up and leave, feeling like a pack of imbeciles and rightly so. Or, they could sit here for hours, finally give up, leave, and later learn that the Resistance showed up five minutes later and subsequently exposed the second Starkiller Base to all the Galaxy as a fraud. That was the biggest danger they faced.

They would just have to sit here forever, then.

If Peavey heard him muttering, he did not let on. There was almost no way he could have avoided hearing it. “Sir, if you’d like to watch the broadcast, I will cover your post and call you if such an occasion arises that you ought to return.”

Color Armitage surprised. He looked to Peavey as such, and Peavey looked like there was nothing unusual about what he had said. Except for the two of them, the Supreme Leader, the handful of other officers who attended, and the propaganda department who spun the raw footage into something presentable, nobody in the First Order knew that the broadcast was happening that day. That would mean that they knew the wedding was a hoax, meant to mislead the Resistance and tangentially the rest of the population. They had no idea their leaders were already married. The Stormtroopers had their memories wiped when Kylo Ren had them assemble a few minutes after the consummation.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Peavey shrugged with a calculated lack of investment in the situation. “It’s _your_ wedding. You have the holonet, don’t you?”

“I have,” said Armitage, glancing about him. Nobody took notice. “I meant to watch it after.”

“You might have the chance to watch all of it,” Peavey suggested.

“I might.” Armitage bit his lip. “You’ll fetch me?”

“Of course.”

“Right! Captain Peavey, cover my post!” Armitage said loudly. “I have an urgent matter to attend to!”

“Very good, Sir.”

Armitage found a back corner of the bridge where he could be alone with a datapad. His subordinates assumed that the Grand Marshal had a _real_ urgent matter to attend to, and they dared not intrude.

If he had not known that the spectacle he saw on the screen was fake, he would have believed it was happening in real time. Legions of Stormtroopers, packed across the camera’s scope. An upbeat, uplifting march. The top First Order appointed correspondents of the one remaining news outlet in the Galaxy, glowing with pride and joy for the sake of the Supreme Leader and his beloved. Armitage frowned at the use of the word _beloved_ but nodded his approval when it was immediately followed with “Armitage Hux, the Grand Marshal of the First Order and co-commander of its courageous, heroic troops.”

Still, Armitage clicked his tongue over it. He had not intended for this ceremony to be about love. He and Kylo felt it for one another, but it was their business and nobody else’s. It was meant to be about many things which _could be_ synonymous with or _implied_ by the word _love_ , like unity, strength, and hope, but those things were distinct from love and possible without it. As far as the rest of the Galaxy was concerned the public wedding of Kylo Ren and Armitage Hux was a political symbol. That, and only that, was appropriate for two people in their position.

After so much pomp, the music died and the media buzz hushed. Two people began their procession of two to the podium. Side by side Armitage watched himself and Kylo sweep past the final few Stormtroopers, because the size of the assembly on the surface of what looked like one of the core worlds (Chandrila, thought Armitage) was larger than the hangar of the _Horizon_.

From the first sight of Kylo in that suit and himself with his cape billowing behind him Armitage was transfixed. He wore an identical uniform at that very moment. Yet, it could not be the same. Impossible. He and Kylo ascended to a mythological status in the images his propaganda department had concocted. They had done this before, in their stills and their informational short films. Armitage admired those. Only now did he _believe_ in what he saw.

His own speech captivated him. He had come such a long way as an orator. Child Armitage was quiet and soft and weak. Speeches? Fire? Passion? He could have never.

_“…strength. With the full support of High Command, I salute and celebrate the rightful authority of our Supreme Leader.”_

He mouthed the final phrases in time with himself. Unlike when he delivered it, the recorded version met with a deafening rapture of applause and quick positive commentary from newscasters. Armitage let himself bask in it. They could go now and he would face battle satisfied with what he had seen. He had one of his moments of unequivocal self-belief. As Kylo took the stand the applause still rang in Armitage’s ears. Even though he only heard them through the tiny speaker of the datapad, he felt as though he saw all of this spectacle that never happened live, right there, in living color.

He would have continued hearing nothing but the applause for himself if something most peculiar had not come out of Kylo’s mouth.

_“I could repeat everything that I have told you over the months that have passed between my assumption of power and the present day,”_ Kylo began. _“I could tell you about the new era of the First Order. I could tell you about created jobs, or the distribution of resources to ensure that no innocent need be sacrificed on the barbarian altar of excess. I could tell you that the terrorists who resist brotherhood and a life of honor have not troubled us in all this time, and perhaps that they may never again, yet that we must always remain vigilant even as we prioritize improving ourselves. I could tell you about spirit, your own spirit… but I’m going to tell you something which, right now, seems of more immediate importance to me._

_“For all this time, I have been your Supreme Leader. Today’s proceedings are merely a formality. Armitage Hux is the love of my life.”_

Wait a minute.

That wasn’t how that speech went.

_“From the moment I saw him, I knew, at the innermost core of my being, that the Force would deliver us to each other.”_

All of the blood drained from Armitage’s face, which was strange, because his heart was beating so fast he could hardly distinguish individual pulses. He glanced around the bridge. Nobody was watching the broadcast. Nobody knew about the broadcast. At least not on this bridge.

“ _Ren_ ,” whispered Armitage to the Kylo on his datapad. He gave the device a little shake and tapped it on the side, like the absurd language coming from that Kylo might be the result of a malfunction. “ _Stop that_. What are you _doing_?!”

_“Both of us were tried and tested by our destinies, and we have been given gifts by those same destinies that allowed us to heal one another. In turn, we will lead you into the glorious future that all of us who are good, and strong, and courageous, and who have love in our hearts will share. What you are witnessing is the story of a boy named Kylo, and a boy named Armitage, and how with their love they saved each other from every bad thing that had ever happened to either of them.”_

As Kylo went on, Armitage grew less and less certain of what he ought to feel. The words were so beautiful. Kylo announced his commitment and affection before an audience, something nobody else had ever done for him. It sank in as he continued to speak. Nobody else had ever said openly that they loved Armitage.

_“Armitage gives me strength. He gives me a center. He gives me something to return to when I have to leave him and fight on your behalf. I ask every citizen who can hear my voice to be the same for your brothers and sisters in the First Order. Stand in solidarity with them and support them as he supports me.”_

When did he do this? He must have wiped Armitage’s memory. There he was, a few paces behind Kylo’s back, looking at him with adoration. Downright _sappy_. Unless he had recorded another version of the speech without Armitage's knowledge... But in that case, had Armitage looked at him like that? No. Impossible.

“S-stupid Ren… I… hate…”

_“It’s true, I always knew that I had to overthrow the tyrant who oppressed the systems of the Galaxy I call home, or that he would dispose of me when he felt I no longer had any use to him,”_ said Kylo. _“I knew how Armitage despised me. On some level, I felt enmity towards him as well. But I knew that my higher purpose called me to his side. He was the one who would help me, and so even as we hated each other and struggled in our rivalry, we guarded each other at every turn. I slew the one called Snoke – and you have Armitage Hux to thank that I had a selfish motivation. I could have fought for power. I could have fought for your sakes. But my selfishness in wanting him served you better than either of those motives did.”_

Armitage snorted out a laugh. “You liar.”

“You’re a liar and a coward, Ben,” said another voice, one that almost made Armitage drop the datapad. Instead, he clutched it to his chest protectively and looked dead ahead at the source of the new voice, which nobody else in the _Horizon_ could see. From that moment through the following ones, Armitage experienced a distorted, dizzying reality. He could still see and hear everything on the bridge. All the people kept talking and the familiar, comforting hum of the ship went on. But they were far away, and blurry, and moved slowly… and the pitches of the sounds might slide up and down, and the images might warp, or be too wide or too tall… something happened that did not concern him in that far-off place that caused several uniformed men and women to shout to one another and announce something to the whole ship.

He could still hear Kylo making his speech, but only in tinny, static-worn snatches: _“…Armitage… two sides… as one… Armitage…”_ Hearing his name repeated made it seem as though Kylo called out to him. Kylo need not call for him. Armitage was with him already. He could see the inside of Kylo Ren’s TIE Silencer, as well as Kylo himself, staring straight ahead in wide-eyed shock and horror. Looking through Kylo’s eyes, he also saw the last person he wanted to see.

The scavenger girl, who had been the one to call him a liar and a coward.

“Even if your uncle, Master Skywalker, hadn’t told us all about your plan, it wasn’t a very good plan, was it?”

There was suddenly a commotion on the bridge of the Horizon – but that was so far away from Armitage. It had nothing to do with him. Even if Peavey rushed up to him and tried to pull him by the arm after several failed attempts to summon him to his post.

Armitage felt Kylo’s rage boiling. Something had happened between the two of them – between Armitage and Kylo, not between Kylo and Rey. The long-term, extensive scoping into the depths of Armitage’s mind on Kylo’s part left something behind. Armitage could not make his mental faculties reach out to try to communicate with either of them and he did not feel as though they knew of his presence.

“I’m waiting for you on the surface of your _fake_ ,” said Rey. “Your fraud. Your phony. It suits you, doesn’t it. It’s an appropriate place for you to meet your end. You’ve had to pretend, and deceive, and lie, and try to scrape together the pieces of your miserable life into a story worth telling. It’s going to be over soon, Ben. Come find me. You’ll know where I am. And don’t think of attacking from above. Your mother is with me. You’ll never know where unless you cooperate. You come alone.”

“Grand Marshal…! Grand Marshal! HUX!”

Edrison Peavey was screaming in his face and trying to pull him along by the elbow. The connection between Armitage and the two playthings of the all-controlling Force ended. Armitage could hear him, but he was muffled by the ringing that deafened Armitage to all else. Outside, a battle raged between two armies of ships.

Armitage did not care about the battle outside.

Armitage could only think of one thing.

Kylo Ren.

Leaning on Peavey for support in his dazed state, he made his way back to his rightful position on the bridge. He knew he was speaking, but all of it he heard was a slurred “I need visuals on the Supreme Leader’s ship immediately.”

“Sir!” said Captain Peavey. “The scope of the Resistance ambush – !”

“I NEED VISUALS!” Armitage screamed. “ON THE SUPREME LEADER’S SHIP! IMMEDIATELY! THAT IS AN ORDER!”

Silence on the bridge of the _Horizon_. Seconds later, a female officer mumbled something. “…jump to hyperspace…”

“SPEAK UP, WOMAN!” Armitage screamed at her.

“Sir!” cried the unfortunate officer. “We don’t have visuals on the TIE Silencer! I-it’s not there Grand M-Marshal, I don’t see anything that would indicate that he’s been hit, b-but…! He might have jumped to hyperspace, l-like the plan said…!”

The woman cowered in her seat before Armitage’s red-faced, blinded fury. He heard exactly what he expected to hear in regards to Kylo’s ship and its whereabouts. That fool made the jump to hyperspace because Rey taunted him and he fell for the taunt. This was the exact thing that he and Armitage both acknowledged as their weakness. They promised to help each other overcome it and they also, Armitage thought, had a sort of unspoken agreement that they would be accountable in their own rights for controlling their anger.

The woman gave a little gasp, and swallowed. Armitage’s fury was not directed at her. It was only aimed at Kylo. If Kylo was not going to display enough maturity to contain his anger and not act on wild, emotional impulse, Armitage saw no reason to contain _his_ anger. He felt nothing except his anger. He refused to allow Kylo to get away with this.

But then he realized that Kylo had not acted out of anger. He did not chase after Rey on impulse. Certainly, he was angry that Skywalker exposed his plan to the Resistance, but that was not why he chased the girl. With absolute clarity Armitage realized that she need not have even shown as much cruelty as she did. Stoicism would have been more effective. Displaying her own anger towards Kylo was a display of her own weakness.

Kylo acted not out of anger, but out of something worse. Kylo had a need for closure. A need to destroy her. He ought to have ignored her. That in itself would have been a victory for Kylo. Ignoring the Resistance all this time, not chasing them and not chasing Rey, had been a victory that he and Armitage achieved together. But his own victory was not enough for Kylo Ren. He also had to have the girl’s defeat.

That selfish _ass_. All this time, he planned to duel Rey because _he wanted to duel Rey_. He had always planned to break formation and fly to her. There was no other reason but his petty quarrel with a teenage girl. Kylo talked about the _balance_! And the _Force_! And how he and Rey _must_ face one another! And Armitage never wanted to hear a word about any of it again. He would kill them both himself, he resolved on the spot. Force be damned. Fate be damned. Justice itself be damned. There was absolutely no justification for Kylo’s actions except that he was an emotional child who ran from the battle with their greatest enemy to fight one person he held a personal grudge towards, to the death, _days_ after he made a life contract with the person he claimed he valued above all else in his life. He was perfectly content to go zipping off to her when he was most needed by the First Order.

Armitage felt the insult dealt to him by Kylo in the depths of his being. For the first time, the selfishness Armitage found so thrilling when the two of them shared it to advance themselves as a pair filled him with righteous indignation.

The strength that had drained from him did not return to him but his body moved without Armitage needing to feel its physical presence as an instrument of his will. Will alone moved his limbs and propelled him out of the bridge, leaving the echoes of an enraged scream behind him with his officers. A few people gave him chase, including Peavey, who by right should stay on the bridge. Armitage could not imagine why even if he bothered to try following him.

It was not the first sprint motivated by something higher than the power of his muscles he would launch himself into during the last battle against the Resistance, nor the final shriek of fury that would erupt from him. He knew that. He looked forward to the rest of them. He deserved every expression of his fury, and Ren deserved everything he was going to get when his husband found him. Armitage barked out a few fragments of orders about a shuttle and getting him to the planet and following “that stupid bastard” and “Hell are you staring at”.

In the hangar, his troops rushed to deploy their TIEs and strike back against the Resistance. Many stopped to watch the Grand Marshal as he pushed someone out of the way to reach an ordinary shuttle. It was known that the Grand Marshal never piloted his own craft. Perhaps he could manage it – but not in his current furious state.

Armitage took two deep breaths. He did not have time to allow himself more. Ignoring the pain in his panicked, air-starved lungs, he told his men of his intentions.

“I am going to the surface of the planet,” he announced. “Continue to deploy TIEs as needed in my absence, Captain Peavey. Destroy the Resistance. If they surrender, take any prisoners you can, and I will make examples of them to our subjects. I leave the _Horizon_ to you until I return – and I _will_ return, mark my words.” The postscript was not meant to assure Peavey of his return, but as a threat to the absent Kylo. Armitage would return. Kylo might meet any number of fates.

For Armitage, in the meantime, was going to destroy his wretched excuse for a man. But Armitage could not fly the shuttle. He looked at the gathered mob of Stormtroopers and his officers, including Peavey. Idiots, he thought. Why did none of them rush to pilot a shuttle to take him to the surface?

“I need a pilot,” he snapped at them. Not one of them moved. None of them so much as made a hesitant start towards moving. “Well?! What are you waiting for! Hurry up!”

“Sir,” said Peavey, the only one with enough of a spine to tell the truth. “The Supreme Leader gave explicit orders to every crewman on the _Horizon_ that you’re not to leave it.”

Armitage’s breath left him in one gust. He caught the side of the shuttle and kept himself on his feet, sucking air back into himself. “I don’t have time for this!” he roared, pointing his blaster into the mob of Stormtroopers. _Now_ they moved, he noticed. Weak. Only fear of his and Kylo’s wrath could move them. Not the desire to help either of them. He felt no sympathy for any of them who might die if he fired. “ _We_ do not have time for this! The Supreme Leader is compromised! I must go to him! Now! Come on!”

Nobody moved. Armitage did not fire the blaster. His threat had not seen results. They would not defy Kylo for him. He slumped against the shuttle. Despair whispered in his ear, and he might succumb at any moment. “Please…”

“ _Move_!”

Armitage heard a young, male voice and saw something disturbing the outskirts of the crowd. A uniformed officer was pushing through the ranks with a speeder bike in tow. “Out of my way!” he shouted, and they got out of his way. Armitage had not seen (or had not noticed) this Lieutenant since the morning of Captain Phasma’s funeral, when he and Kylo decided he did not need to be killed. Their eyes met and understanding passed between them. Nobody helped them load the speeder bike into the shuttle, but nobody stopped them either.

“Terrain,” he huffed in explanation, pointing at the bike, once they were in the shuttle. “Shuttles can’t land just anywhere, lots of uneven terrain on the planet that you could cross with that… entire forests of petrified trees… never know… It’s the best I can do. Better to have it than need it and not have it.”

“Smart thinking. Good work. Fly fast,” Armitage ordered. “Fly exactly where I tell you to fly. Jump to hyperspace the second you’re able. I have a tracker on him. Fly straight to where it leads us as fast as this machine can go.”

“Yes, Grand Marshal,” the Lieutenant replied.

Their exchange was curt and flat. It could almost have happened between a pair of droids. Armitage raked his brain to remember the young man’s name. Rizzo? Rizzo, he thought. He could hardly remember anything at that moment except that he had to find Kylo. He could not think of anything to do when he found him except to make him rue the day he had ever chased any of his ambitions, including both leadership of the First Order and the hand of Armitage Hux. But he had to find him. His fingers fumbled with the safety restraints until the Lieutenant had them flown well out of the hangar.

“Your valor is admirable,” said Armitage momentarily. “And I thank you for your service, Rizzo.”

“Carousco,” the Lieutenant corrected him. “My name is Leopold Carousco.”

Armitage did not respond or acknowledge what he had said. The exchange said enough. He had held the belief that the boy’s name was Rizzo since he dismissed him from his quarters and pushed him out of his mind, despite seeing his name recorded in a datapad minutes before.

He directed Carousco to the planet’s surface. Armitage was right: by the time the outdated Resistance ships fired any shots at the shuttle it had streaked past their line of fire and gone in to land at a higher than safe speed. But land they did, while Carousco bit his lips in concentration, with a neatness that Armitage recalled the boy to characteristically possess. Right where the signal lead them.

But when they reached the source of the signal Kylo was nowhere to be seen.

“I don’t see him,” said the Lieutenant.

“He’s here,” said Armitage, as if saying it would make it true, or as if looking at the blip of Kylo’s signal on his datapad would make him appear. “The tracker… Take us down. Do it.”

Carousco took them to the planet’s surface. Armitage had his safety restrains off before the power cut off and his feet on the ground before Carousco could open his mouth. Kylo could not possibly be further away than his eye could see, and yet he could not see either him or the scavenger girl. Nothing was large enough to conceal either of them. Armitage and Carousco had landed in a desert. Despite the dark, Armitage would have seen them. He only saw the skeleton of something in the distance and…

…and something glinting in the lights of the shuttle at his feet.

It was the buckle of Kylo’s belt.

Armitage stooped and picked it up. He turned it over between his white-gloved fingers, staring at it, eyes threatening to fall shut and consciousness threatening to fall out of his mind.

“No…”

“Sir? Sir?”

Carousco was so far away. Kylo had dropped the buckle and flown onward to find the girl. He knew. He had known about the tracker – for how long? And even while falling for the girl’s bait he knew Armitage would follow him.

That son of a bitch. The audacity of Kylo Ren. How dare he. How dare he rush off and make everything about himself when he had Armitage and their life together and the whole Galaxy in his hands.

Armitage squeezed the belt buckle so hard it pressed lines into his palms through the gloves. He set his teeth. “Ren,” he hissed through them, groping for the connection he had felt minutes ago. He felt something then. He would feel it again now. Nothing could stop him. He didn’t care how or why. Kylo Ren and his mysticism rubbed off on him. Armitage would harness it and use it to find him and then he would _kill him_.

“Ren…!”

He had no way of knowing if what he felt then was real, but he felt himself leaving his body. He saw himself from above, a white speck crowned with his red hair in a beige desert lit by distant stars and their towering lamps shining pale diffused light over the surface, hands clutching the tiny piece of metal. Something lifted him up. Something called out to Kylo.

Armitage knew that if he did not move his legs then, in that moment, he would never move them again. They would fold under him. He would collapse screaming and crying and never get back up and he and Kylo would both die on this stupid rock. He heard Carousco calling him – as “General” – and ran toward the sound.

Armitage heaved the speeder bike out of the shuttle, ignoring Carousco’s voice except as a waypoint to follow until he had the bike. He said something about “Sir, we can find him, we can search the planet for him and the girl! Stop!”, but Armitage did not listen. Carousco could not take him to Kylo. He did not know if he could take himself to Kylo, but he felt a compulsion to move. It felt as though there was only one direction left in which to move. He had ridden a speeder bike twice in his life, unsteadily, but the machine hummed to life and shot off across the rocky ground without any hesitation from it or Armitage. He kept his head bent into the wind and his teeth bared. His hat had blown off when he got up to speed. His cape went next, fluttering away and out of his mind before it began to fall from the air.

“REN!” he screamed when he was flying as fast as the machine could fly him, letting his resentment and anger and fear blossom from his mouth. “ _REN!_ ”

 

Kylo knew that Rey was coming to meet him. He walked slowly. There was no need to expend himself. She was not expending herself. He threaded his belt through an extra belt buckle. He always kept one in each of his personal ships. Armitage thought his tracker was a _secret_. He thought he could hide anything from Kylo. Kylo loved that about him. He loved Armitage’s fierce pride and determination, his defiance of the Force and those around him who wielded it, his bravery in the face of them, his love of himself. It all grew from the same root. It was one quality that lived in him that moved him to all of the behaviors that endeared his husband to him.

He loved Armitage with every cell in his body and every beat of his heart, and he knew that Armitage loved him equally. Kylo never thought that such a thing was possible. He never thought anyone could love as much as he did. But Armitage could, once he let Kylo love him first. As a result, Kylo was now unstoppable, and Kylo knew it.

Therefore, there was nothing driving Kylo to run to meet Rey. In pausing to hook his weapons back on his belt, he did her a favor. He extended her life. They would meet far from the frame of the weaponry of the trench running around the planet’s circumference – although the planet was not large. He hoped that she admired this planet, as it would be the last thing she ever saw except for him.

Centuries ago this world had forests. It had an ocean. It had its own atmosphere, rather than one the First Order had to supply for it. Since its death its corpse had continued trudging around a too-close and too-hot sun until Captain Audacious of the _Eclipse_ chose it to serve the First Order’s needs. Kylo heard sediment packed into rock crunching and rasping beneath his boots as he put one foot in front of the other. The bleached and crumbling bones of creatures large enough for him to walk through their ribcages languished in his field of vision. Cliffs jutted up, burnt orange and pink-beige in sheets of rock, fractured by tremors within the planet. He saw the occasional streak of purplish-red in the formations amid nearly-colorless quartz crystals.

Overhead the sky was its perpetual almost-black. If they had any intention of using it, if it were a functional weapon and not a mock-up, it might have seen a different sky. It never would. It would hang here as a memorial to the war in the blackness for as long as his Order lived – which was to say, forever, long after he and Armitage and any of the heirs they would ever meet died.

This was the end. And this was the beginning. It was the end of the war, which had been all but over for months, and the true beginning of the First Order.

She was getting close. He could feel it. In this expanse, he thought he saw a figure in the distance. The almost-black of the sky and the warm colored sandstone merged to the eye, forming a deep brown horizon. Something moved on it. If Armitage had followed him, he would be put off by the tracker Kylo dropped far, far in the wrong direction, and he would have no way of knowing which way to go to pursue him. Kylo could find him once it was over. He would have to apologize for everything he had done, and potentially some other things that he would have to do to keep Armitage from killing him. He had already accepted that his coming here was a sin against Armitage. It was a necessary evil. Rey and his mother were both here. Rey had not lied. He felt the presence of them both nearby, although something obscured his mother’s precise location.

This was the only chance he would get – or so he convinced himself.

Someday, Armitage might realize that Kylo did not have a choice, and that it was _not_ only for himself that he came here. It was for the good of both of them. What was good for them was good for the First Order – Kylo told himself.

Moments later, he saw that he had been correct. Rey dotted the horizon. It was her. It was here. It was now. It was the end.

He knew that her eyes were just as trained on him as his were on her. Both of them knew that they need not anticipate any surprise attacks from the other. There were words that had to be spoken between them first.

When she stopped, he stopped. She had one the same tattered, dirty hooded robe he saw her in when he went to Canto Bight in velvet and fur. It had once been white. She unwound it from around her person and threw it aside. Except for a scar on her upper arm he saw that she looked the same as she ever had, with her hair in its three ridiculous buns. She was perhaps like a cut and polished jewel when before she had been in the rough. What had burned behind her eyes in the forest burned brighter here in the desert. How appropriate, that she should die on sand packed into rock, sand that could no longer move or cover her, when she had lived her life in sand and like the sand of this world, been hardened into something new – and ultimately still worthless, thought Kylo.

“Ben!” she called.

“Scavenger!” he responded.

“It doesn’t have to be like this!” she implored him, but he thought that her voice held the same barbed mockery it had when he heard her in his TIE Silencer.

“How else could it possibly be?!”

“It’s not too late for you! It’s never too late! You’re a _person_ , Ben! You’re a human being!”

“I’m a monster!” he shouted. “And my name is Kylo!”

She started to move again, but was not charging to attack him yet. Her figure grew larger as he strode to close the distance that fate kept between them until now.

“You will die here! In the sand, among the crumbling bones of the long-dead past, where you belong!” Kylo said. “After a lifetime of picking up after other people and scavenging – you scavenged every ounce of power you have from _me_ , Rey! I worked to become what I am! You were given everything, and you have no right to any of it! Not the power that the Force has put into you, not that lightsaber, and not use of the name _Ben Solo_!”

“If you weren’t so hungry for power, the Force would not have needed to send me to stop you!” Rey shouted back. “If you didn’t use your gifts to ruin everything and everyone around you, if you used them for _good_ , it wouldn’t have to be this way!”

“I _like_ it this way!”

They could see one another’s faces now. Hers was red with barely-held anger. He knew his was, too.

“The Force is _not_ my Master!” Kylo told her. “I have no Master not of my own choosing! Not now! Not _ever_ again! I don’t use my gifts for anything _but_ the good and safety of the Galaxy into which I was born! What’s good for me _is_ the greater good! I’m the only one who has the power to protect the people of the Galaxy from themselves! Anyone who would attempt to stop me deserves no mercy! _Especially you!_ ”

Horror mixed with Rey’s anger. “ _Especially me?!_ ”

“Yes!” shouted Kylo. “You have the Force! You should understand! You should have joined me!”

“Don’t you _dare_ ask me to join you again.”

“You don’t deserve a second chance! You could beg on your knees to join the First Order, and I’d cut you to pieces!”

Rey and Kylo seethed as they circled each other, like two predators locked in a private war over a kill, or over one of their territories.

“Truly, Ben Solo is dead!”

“Ben Solo was dead when you were starving in the dirt!”

“There’s nothing I can say to save you!”

“You were never worth trying to save!”

Rey’s lightsaber – _his grandfather’s lightsaber_ , the one that ought to be his and would be soon – ignited first. She held it upright and aloft. Kylo pulled his from his belt and its red light crackled between them, parallel to the ground.

“I’ll end your reign today!” Rey announced.

“I’m sure you’re eager to try!” said Kylo. “And I’m sure you’d like to think you could! But I know you don’t have what it takes. You want to kill me. I can sense that from you. But you can’t.”

“You think I cannot defeat you?” asked Rey.

“No,” said Kylo. “I know you can’t. I have power you can’t conceive of.”

“Like what?” asked Rey. “You said yourself, the Force stole everything you worked for and gave it to me, didn’t it?”

“Not this,” said Kylo. “It can’t steal everything.”

“You are the one who can’t defeat me,” said Rey. “I have something that you can never know.”

“And what would that be?”

“You’re going to die never knowing it.”

“You’ll die without knowing what power truly is,” said Kylo. “Or what justice is, or what the good you’d like to think you fight for truly means!”

“Snake!” said Rey.

“Rat!” said Kylo.

“Selfish, egotistical…”

“Foolish, ignorant…”

“Madman.”

“Junk scrap.”

“Darth Tantrum!”

“Nothing! Nobody! _Garbage_!”

“Overgrown spoiled _brat_!”

“ _Idiot_!”

“ _Maniac_!”

_“Terrorist!”_ shrieked Kylo.

_“Tyrant!”_ screamed Rey.

She was not afraid of him. He was not afraid of her. His next wordless utterance began as a roar but rose into another shriek of rage. She answered with a battle-cry of her own, a single-note scream that did not rise or fall in pitch or intensity. Then, they charged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose not to use archive warnings for this story.
> 
> That does not mean that no archive warnings apply.
> 
> There is one update remaining, consisting of two chapters. Beyond this point in the story, there is graphic violence and death. Things happen to characters that don't deserve it. In a war, in order for one side to win, the other side has to lose. My beta reader refused to speak to me properly for about twelve hours after reading the ending. Please be prepared.


	12. Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I chose not to use archive warnings for this story.
> 
> That does not mean that no archive warnings apply.
> 
> WARNING: This is the last update. Beyond this point in the story, there is graphic violence and death. Things happen to characters that don't deserve it. In a war, in order for one side to win, the other side has to lose. My beta reader refused to speak to me properly for about twelve hours after reading the ending. Please be prepared.
> 
>  
> 
> Before we begin the last leg of this journey, I want to thank my beta reader (who did eventually start speaking to me again) for the second half of the story, my roommate, and everyone who supported me while I wrote this. You know who you are. Thank you.

The initial flurry of glancing blows that Kylo traded with Rey conveyed his contempt for her more than his desire to kill. Half a year he had waited to cross lightsabers again with his enemy. Beyond all the obstacles he made of fathers and old Masters, Rey had waited for him all of his life. With each door Kylo blew open a new door waited for him guarded by a deadlier foe. The apprentices who fled with him to become the Knights of Ren – they only added a few years to the lives his lightsaber took as part of his training. His father. Snoke. And now Rey. The final door did not wait behind his victory over Rey. There would be one after her. But this was the most dangerous battle in which he would ever raise his weapon.

He enjoyed it. He knew that fighting this way would never lead them to a definitive outcome. They could do this for hours without a winner or a loser. They would fall back from each other soon. To feel his lightsaber falling against another of its own kind surpassed the experience of hacking apart training droids. He had missed it. To hear their lightsabers droning and humming as they swung them to block each other’s preliminary attempts to land a hit, feeling one another out for their progression over the months since they had last fought _together_ , brought a sense of satisfaction rising to meet his hate for the scavenger girl.

Rey too seemed to enjoy it. He could feel her hatred for him and would have without the blessing of his strength in the Force. Hate led to the dark side. Kylo knew that the dark side, like the Force itself, was not his Master. He was not like so many who came before him. He mastered it. In his estimation, Rey had mastered the hatred and the darkness within her. Those who came before her, including his foolish uncle, would have tried to purge that hate and purify their souls. Rey, for all her ignorance that made her unworthy of Kylo, understood at least that. Where before, she had been incomplete, both of them now balanced between the light and the dark.

They broke apart. The soles of his boots grated into sandstone.

“You’ve learned,” said Kylo.

“Nothing I didn’t already know, really,” said Rey. Her lightsaber traced a circled through the air at her side. When Kylo leaned into the first step of another charge she feinted in his direction, turned on her step, and darted away from him. He could see her destination: one of the rock formations of the planet. It rose farther away than a typical sprint’s distance, but sprint Rey did nonetheless. Kylo pursued her in his own sprint, which did not match hers.

She turned to face him again when they had both climbed part of the rock face, she higher than him. Was she relying on having the high ground? Really? At _this_ stage? Perhaps he overestimated her. Perhaps he congratulated her on her progress too soon. Perhaps she had learned nothing at all, in truth.

But Kylo soon realized this was not the case. Rey continued to lead him upwards, only exchanging a few more cursory lightsaber plays at each pause she made. She set the pace and Kylo followed her. Rey was trying to wear him out. He ended his pursuit at once and, once she darted out of range to attack his raised arm, broke a barrage of boulders off the formation above her with his mind. Rey heard them break and turned around with her own arm raised to try to push them back.

More of the rock face, which still reached above them into the near-black sky, crumbled and gathered in something of a cloud over Rey. If she kept trying to hold them against Kylo’s push them she would eventually give out and either be crushed or have to run. She chose to run, and Kylo had her on the defensive as she stumbled downhill. The rocks avoided him. Since he gained sole control of them they took only a fraction of the power he needed to compete with Rey when he manipulated them down the slope.

He knew he would have to rely on attacks like that more. Adapting to Snoke forced him to focus his training on different skills than she developed. Rey had every natural advantage over Kylo in straight-ahead lightsaber combat, primarily because she was smaller. This made her nimbler than Kylo and she presented a target that was harder to hit than him. Grudgingly, he also had to admit that scrapping and surviving for over ten years on Jakku gave her a combatant’s edge that he envied and could not have developed in his life as the son of a senator or even after his training in the dark side began.

Kylo knew all of this from the time of their first duel, and he did not allow it to discourage him. He also knew that his powers of telepathy surpassed Rey’s. Just as she would not have survived to meet him if her skills in hand-to-hand combat never surpassed the planet that she had to fight, he would never have survived to meet her had he not surpassed Snoke.

“I can feel your hatred for me,” he said when they faced each other again on level ground. “You’re using it admirably. It’s a shame you learned what little you did too late.”

“I don’t hate you,” said Rey.

“You want to kill me.”

“I do.”

“But you claim not to hate me.”

Both of them had grown winded. This pause was mutually acceptable as an opportunity to catch their breaths.

“You’re not worth hatred,” said Rey.

“I know that you’re lying,” said Kylo, without implying any need to make her tell the truth. “I can admit that I hate you, freely. I hate you. I want to kill you, too. I can say it, it’s nothing to me to say it.”

Rey shook her head minutely. “It won’t matter.”

Around her, a half-circle of the ground rose in an enclosing wall. She jumped to the top of it, lifted by the Force. Kylo had meant to trap her. A tremor shook the surface of the planet. Rey never looked unsteady on her feet.

“Be careful!” she taunted. “General Organa is concealed somewhere nearby! If you keep doing that, you might find her.”

Kylo scowled. He knew she was right. He could no longer feel his mother’s presence as more than a faint, nagging sensation in the back of his mind, as one feels the suspicion that they forgot some important task. “You’d threaten my mother?”

“No,” said Rey. “I just don’t want her to see you lose.”

If Leia were in direct danger, Kylo reasoned, Rey would not taunt him about putting her in danger with anything close to a smile on her face. He stabbed the base of the rock wall he pulled from within the planet. It cracked and destabilized. Rey now lost her footing, but instead of trying to regain it flipped backwards and away from Kylo, returning to the ground. He sliced through what remained in his path in time to see her body making a slowed arc through the darkness that he would not call graceful, but which had a kind of clean efficiency to it.

Clean and efficient too were the steps she took as they returned to circling each other. He wondered if she was aware that they were the only worthy opponents they knew. One day, he might face someone who could test him more than Rey, but if he would he had not yet met them. A pity, then, that they could not exercise the full power that they had both come to embody. They would destroy the planet. If it did not cease to exist, torn apart by their fighting as worlds often were in wars, they would render it unable to support the two of them and their continued existence. They might even kill themselves before either could kill the other.

Kylo and Rey could never truly know, then, which of them _should_ win. They knew that in raw power the Force matched them equally. The outcome of their duel rode on cunning and a contest of their skills, as well as the feats of endurance. Their endurance was the true manifestation of their capabilities. That, and the fact that neither of them could simply crush the other’s body or mind, as he knew he could with most sentient beings. He assumed she knew she could too, but that she never tried. Potentially, they could keep going in the same way until one of their bodies _quit_. But Kylo knew that would not happen for a long, long time. It would end before that. One of them would see a window of opportunity and kill the other first.

At any rate, they must hold back.

When another, very brief exchange was punctuated with their lightsabers locking against each other and both trying to push the other to the ground, it occurred to Kylo that Rey might be holding back _too much_. He continued to bear down on her, watching her face carefully.

Rey, he thought, had no intention of actually killing him. She wanted something else. Did she still want to save him? Was that possible? She was clearly stupid enough to believe that she stood on the right side of history, but could she be stupid enough to think that he would ever side with her? Or did she intend to take him prisoner? Did she believe he could be contained? The only way that would be possible was if she herself became his guard at all times. She might want to try to reach him and twist his mind until he fell for the lies that the light used to use to tempt him – unfortunately for her, they no longer reached him. Could she be such a fool as to think she could achieve any of this? And what purpose did it serve?

It did not matter. Kylo had a reasonable suspicion that Rey was not trying to kill him, and he could leverage it.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” he roared over the clashed lightsabers.

“I don’t fear you!” she shouted back. “I have nothing to fear from someone like you!”

Summoning his strength, he shoved her to the rock below, then tried to bring his lightsaber down on top of her to either catch and lock her in again or to kill her. He missed. One of her legs folded under her and she spun on it, then regained her footing when she was facing him again. When she came up, her knee was raw where she used it to pivot. Kylo sneered. He knew where she learned that trick, and the memory of his uncle (the reason his trap failed – although the Force would have brought him to face his enemy regardless) sparked the destructive, juvenile kind of anger that he and Armitage had in common and worked together to overcome in themselves. He must not let it set him aflame.

“Someone like me? What does that mean?” he asked. If he could keep her talking, he could keep her thinking that she was winning. He would see his opening. The right moment to strike was bound to come. He would let her believe that her running away and her taunts had the intended effect of wearing him out and blinding him with rage, like he was some kind of dumb animal. Did she think of him as a rancor? Someone who achieved everything that he achieved, a brainless beast? Insulting. She would learn.

“I’ll tell you if you win,” said Rey.

This answer led him to believe that she did not think of this duel as one that would end in death. It all but confirmed for Kylo that she had a different objective. She let it slip out. “If I win, you’ll be dead,” Kylo pointed out.

“You’ll never know, then,” said Rey. “But if you have to ask what someone like you is, you can never understand, anyway.”

Before she got the last word of her sentence out, his leg was bending up at the knee. If she had been on her guard she could have stopped him or even taken off his leg before he drove his foot into her solar plexus. It was a risk on Kylo’s part, but one that handily paid off: he knew now that Rey could get wrapped up in mocking him, and it also sent her reeling. But in a surprising show of tenacity, she reared up when he closed in on her, caught the wrist that held his lightsaber, held it away from her, and headbutted him in the face with a CRACK!

Neither of them hid their grunts and, in Kylo’s case, tears of pain. The blow to his nose unavoidably made blinding tears spring to his eyes, but the pain kept them flowing. The strain of striking back against him after taking the kick to the stomach had her doubled over almost on the ground, heaving. Both of their lightsabers went dark for the moment. He tripped a few steps away and touched his nose. Broken, of course. Kylo steeled himself and, with a sustained cry, set it. The cry of pain became another battle cry when he realized he tasted his own blood. He had his determination. A broken nose was not going to stop him. If he could pull himself together before Rey did, he could raise his lightsaber and…

…she was already out of his reach, still gasping and coughing a little but standing upright. She saw his tears and grinned. She took genuine pleasure in seeing him cry. The red-hot spark inside of him that he felt when she made him think of his uncle returned, except that this time it was not a spark, but a flame. A small flame, but one that he knew from experience could grow if he tried with too much desperation to stamp it out. How dare she relish his tears. How dare she… she had no right to enjoy that… only for Armitage, he thought to tell himself, enjoying his tears was something only Armitage had a right to do, nobody else… it did not help. He could not quite transmute his emotion into something based in virtue. He could not quite convince himself that the slight against him, even such a tiny slight, was a theft against Armitage that he must righteously avenge. Kylo got hurt, he cried, Rey was glad of it. Armitage had nothing to do with anything.

The thought of losing control again and suffering another humiliating defeat as a result, even setting aside what defeat would mean for his future, terrified him. Terror only brought him closer to defeat. He had to end this before he lost control. He must not lose control.

He reminded himself that Armitage was safe and his vision would not come true. He threw Armitage off his trail, even if Armitage tried to follow him here. Although the crew might have stopped him from giving chase, Kylo could not expect him to obey the order to stay on the _Horizon_. Wedding Armitage had, in practice, given another promotion: from Kylo’s Grand Marshal to Kylo’s husband. Armitage would never obey his orders again – not that he ever really followed them in the first place. The order to stay on the _Horizon_ , however, was the last one that would ever matter.

That let him cling to a center in his mind, albeit imperfectly.

He tried to maneuver her back up the mountain. He should have kept her there in the first place – _no_ , he told himself, _stop thinking like that_. When Kylo broke off the rain of boulders to try to crush Rey, it left the side much easier to navigate. They fought across the field of rubble that had been left behind by his assault. Ideally, Rey would think that this turn of the battle was her idea, that she was leading him uphill again. In truth, Kylo wanted to isolate her somewhere level, but difficult to escape. She could potentially jump off, but, he decided, he would simply have to keep her from jumping.

Both of them were getting tired. The brief rests they took could not rejuvenate them, and were not meant to. Rey never fully got her breath back and Kylo’s vision was still blurry with tears. His blood did not stop running from his nose. If she exhausted herself too much she would be unable to capture him – she needed some of her strength left to take and keep him prisoner. They would both get closer to what they wanted by isolating and cornering each other.

Without much difficulty, they crossed the rubble and the leveled slope. The last pass of rock they climbed, now having dropped the pretense of fighting on it and just trying to reach the plateau they thought they could see above their heads, was harder to traverse. But when they reached the top, they looked at the high plane of relative smoothness, and then each other. This was where one of them would win, and one of them would lose. Kylo inclined his head. Rey nodded back. They were in agreement.

Kylo demonstrated that he too knew what a feint was. He made a swing for Rey’s face when he was too far away to actually land the hit. She flinched, squinted, and moved to defend herself. Kylo laughed and swung low instead. In his mind, that got her back for smirking at his tears. Rey barely jumped over the red blade, and they were right back at the same exchange they had been all along. Again, they locked.

This would get them nowhere, and the enjoyment of channeling their mutual loathing into the flash and strike of their lightsabers wore off some time ago, but when they looked into each other’s eyes they saw that neither of them would or could change the pace of battle and end it with anything, as Kylo considered earlier, except one of their bodies collapsing when it could fight no more.

It was then that Rey chose to throw open the connection between her mind and Kylo’s.

In the real world, she was screaming out her last war-cry. Too late, he realized she had just dealt her decisive blow without the use of her weapon. Although they could still see each other and, distantly, the surface of the planet, he stood paralyzed and helpless as she tore past the point of connectedness that made them able to see one each other from anywhere in the stars, past his surface thoughts, and then past anything and everything that protected his mind from hers.

Her powers of the mind were greater than he had realized, and she had the element of surprise. He might still have the capability to keep her out of his mind, or at least hold her back from total domination. But as she had when he interrogated her on the Finalizer, she paid no attention to anything but his darkest secrets. The most guarded corners of his mind were flooded.

The difference was that he knew now that he had surpassed Darth Vader. Vader could never have been as strong as _him_. What Rey found in Kylo’s mind was worse than insecurity and hero-worship.

She saw how he had wanted her, months ago. She saw how he fell into helpless obsession in a few days – in truth, a few hours. She saw how he had wanted her to leave her newfound friends behind and become his Queen. Not for the greater good – that was only an excuse. He wanted her to choose _him_. To love _him_. To side with _him_ , disregarding what she thought was right and wrong. He felt no desire for her now, but the humiliating memories could not be erased. He could not change the reality of the past: he had thought of them as divine, destined lovers, for a few blissful moments of idiocy.

At the same time, Kylo saw her absolute resolution in favor of her friends and the cause of the Resistance, and he saw that he never had a chance of turning her. She saw him and their connection as means to an end – which he already knew, but it burned him to see the truth laid before his mind’s eye.

He had seen Armitage’s memories of seeing him, and now he saw Rey’s perception of him. The difference between the two could have been the difference between two unrelated strangers. Nowhere did he see the attention Armitage paid to how his hair framed his face, to the intensity of his stare, to the warm brown color of his eyes, or to his full lips which tempted Armitage to kiss them and betrayed every one of Kylo’s emotions. There was no magnetic aura about this Kylo. No noble brow, no luminous complexion. Rey noticed the weak chin, the over-present nose, the pastiness, and the scowling of a man with no principles she saw as _far_ older than her (more than warranted by ten years, Kylo tried to protest to no result), and thought of his eyes as being like black holes holding only the annihilation of everything that they saw behind them.

But she also saw him with Armitage. She saw how he had, so many times, begged Armitage beat him, and then cried. He let the sorrow and pain of his life before flow out of him under Armitage’s flog and whip and then under the sweet voice that was only for Kylo. It appalled her, all of it. She found everything about them alien to the point of morbid fascination.

Beyond that, she saw his past with Armitage. How he became infatuated the first time he saw him and quickly obsessed, just like he later would with her. She saw how he gave up and grew to disdain Armitage, and then how much, much later, when Kylo wormed his way into the other man’s heart, he set about devoting a whole propaganda campaign to the idea that that they had always been each other’s one and only true love, because Kylo Ren was _that determined_ for nobody to ever find out that anyone had ever rejected him.

That she tricked him, in Kylo’s opinion. How she humiliated him by taking advantage of his greatest weakness: his need to be loved. How dare he need to be loved! But he saw in her mind that she had never considered the possibility at all.

He now, as she saw, held fast to the belief that he and Armitage Hux were sent to one another by the Force. Meant for each other. Just like he thought of himself and Rey. In fairness, he thought of himself and Armitage that way first. That much was true. He believed that about them before Armitage’s bottomless hatred deterred him. But to Rey, the idea of anyone being _meant_ for anyone else was so ridiculous that it did not matter who Kylo fixated on first.

She laughed at him.

She saw his intention to find his mother and appeal to her emotions. He still wanted Leia to join him! Surely, Kylo thought, she could be persuaded. Surely, she still loved her son. She must. But this final secret that Rey ripped out of his mind sent her laughing even harder at Kylo.

“He was right to laugh!” she whispered, as though speaking might disrupt some solemnity of this moment which had her reeling with laughter, might dispel the revelations pouring into her mind. It made no difference who she was talking about. Kylo agreed that whoever he was, he was right to laugh at him. Before her, he knew that he was utterly pathetic. He was _nothing_.

His lightsaber slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground. Rey caught it on her foot and kicked it into the air, then caught it. Kylo could not make his body stop her from kicking him in the chest. His chest heaved as it tried to return his breath to his body, but he dared not move. His fingers curled against the unforgiving sandstone beneath him. Everything hurt. Rey’s kick knocked him on his backside. Blue and red light flared between them, from her saber in her right hand and his dropped saber in her left hand which she crossed at his throat. Kylo became more aware of the vein throbbing on the side of his neck than he ever had been in his life. A lock of hair stuck plastered with sweat across his eyebrow and almost in his eye. He knew better than to try to brush it aside.

“It’s over, Ben,” said Rey.

Kylo wanted only to hide his face from her. To curl up with his knees to his chest and wail. But if he moved, he would die. How dare she think so little of him when he was worth so much! “Are you going to kill me?” he asked, hoarse. He suspected that he knew the answer, and he heard what he anticipated hearing:

“No,” said Rey. “You’re going to pay for everything you’ve done. I don’t see any way you won’t die, in the end. But I know you have to stand in front of everyone whose lives you’ve ruined as an example first. You’re not going to be like your grandfather. No one in the future is going to have an image of you to look to for inspiration. Or an excuse.”

Kylo was aware of a few things, none of which he had any time to question:

First, that Rey would not kill him. She only wanted to take him prisoner.

Second, that Rey was focused completely on him. As long as one of them held open the connection between their minds (the same connection as ever, but carved out deeper by sheer power) she would remain so. Nothing in the world outside of the two of them would reach her.

Third, that Rey thought they were alone and that nothing else mattered. She might be enthralled by this chance to exercise her abilities, or she might simply despise Kylo that much. It did not matter.

And finally, that Armitage Hux was coming up the side of the mountain on a speeder bike.

He must not think about that, or Rey would sense it. Instead, he thought about waking up next to him that morning.

“Is Armitage alive?” he asked, slowly, willing the image of Armitage’s sleeping face to eclipse the image of Rey’s. Armitage, who told Kylo he had value. Armitage, who he just wanted to hold him and make everything better and say that the girl’s horrid cruelty would never harm Kylo again… yes, Rey, _that_ was why Kylo thought of Armitage…

“Yes,” said Rey. “At least, the Resistance’s intention is to take him alive.”

“So you can humiliate him, as you plan to humiliate me.”

“Exactly,” Rey sneered.

“Well,” said Kylo with a wry smile, for he had to buy time. “I don’t see how much worse it could be than you seeing the truth of what I think of you.”

Rey laughed. “I have to agree. Except that everyone is going to find out that your marriage is a lie, aren’t they?”

Kylo shut his eyes and looked, for all the stars, like a man bearing the worst of indignities. He sighed through his broken nose and lied through his teeth. “They will,” he said, barely above a whisper. “But it’s not entirely a lie. He’s not you, but… if he had been taken from me, I would have felt it. Will I get to say goodbye?”

“Will he even want to say goodbye to you?”

Kylo let the horror of the future he had no plans to face feel real for a moment. It was the only way to lie effectively, as he learned years ago. “No,” he said, sounding so very small. “Neither he nor my mother will want to say goodbye to me. But as long as he’s alive… I’ll…”

Armitage had to let the speederbike go for the last stretch of his ascent. There was no more ground clear enough for him to ride it over. Only jagged, impassible juts of rock stayed between him and Ren. He could see the red and blue lights. He heard the hum, the sound he despised in that moment more than any other sound in the Galaxy. His muscles and his lungs screamed, but they were his mastered and enslaved captives, and he had never cared when _those_ screamed before.

When he reached level ground and started immediately into a full sprint in the direction of the concluded duel, Armitage expected to see his husband either dead already or waving around his laser sword like the overgrown boy he was, yelling at a girl a decade his junior who he let mock him until he threw a fit. What he saw was his husband winded, crying, and with a broken nose, drenched in sweat, with his hair in his face and two lightsabers crossed so close to his neck that if Armitage shot Rey in the back the jolt of impact would decapitate him. He had been knocked flat on his ass and the chest visible through the open shirt he wore had a large red mark on it that would bruise.

In an instant, all of the anger he felt towards Kylo redirected itself at Rey. Kylo was his, and his alone, to hurt. She would pay.

The hilt of the Darksaber unclipped from Kylo’s belt and flew past Rey’s head. When the sword came to Armitage at Kylo’s bidding he knew exactly what to do. The black blade flared to life in Armitage’s hand for the last time. The perpetual twilight vanished for a moment, drawn into it. It was bigger than it was the only other time Kylo had persuaded him to take the weapon up. The whiter-than-white light crackling around it hissed brighter than the dim of before had, as though the Darksaber took the half-light and refined it through Armitage’s rage into something equally dangerous.

Rey turned when the hilt flew from behind Kylo’s back and over her shoulder. Not wanting to damage her prisoner, she carefully drew the crossed lightsabers away from his neck before she turned her body below the neck. She had just enough time to see Armitage Hux illuminated in flashing, flickering light so stark it rendered him without color except for a hint of orange remaining in his hair. His face appeared as pale as his dirtied uniform. As she raised her left arm and the hand holding Kylo’s lightsaber to block his attack it was cast in red. The blue light of her own weapon hummed to her right, his left, but it was not near enough that either it or the light it shone could touch him.

She almost raised Kylo’s saber in time. But his blow was untrained and therefore erratic. It came at her too high up and too quickly. Under ordinary circumstances the strike would have left the attacker open and as good as dead. Rey thought she would block it in the split second she had to do so. She thought her arm, crossed over her body instinctively at the shock of seeing anyone besides her and Kylo, would pass by her face and the black blade would clash with the red one.

But Armitage cut through her arm halfway between her wrist and her elbow. The red lightsaber instantly went dark and clattered to the ground with Rey’s lower arm. Her scream drowned out the roar of his blade and only grew more piercing when the blade, longer than either of them expected it to manifest, cut into her face. The tip split the flesh of her forehead and crossed through the center of her left eye.

Seeing the blood, Armitage threw the Darksaber aside, and never picked it up again. He clutched his arm, wincing with pain and shaking, as Rey tried to clutch the stump of her own arm. Her lightsaber fell to the ground too. She never got the chance to touch it again.

Kylo was already in action. His lightsaber returned to his right hand. His left hand and the Force had Rey by the neck. Her feet left the ground. She floated away from Armitage as Kylo seemed to float to his side. Armitage could see her better now. The light had returned to its static dim. He and Kylo looked at one another. Armitage knew what Kylo asked of him without needing to hear the question out loud.

“You have to do it,” he said, answering the question that he had not been asked. “For me. Do this, and I will forgive you.”

“For what?” asked Kylo.

“You’re an ass,” said Armitage. “You’ve been foolish, stubborn, and _very_ rude to me. But do this, and I will forgive you.”

“And nothing else?”

“There is nothing else for which I have not already forgiven you.”

“If there is nothing else, why does it have to be me?”

“If you can do this, I will be assured that you have committed no transgression but your stupidity in coming here.”

“Are you sure?” asked Kylo. “Are you sure it has to be me? And that it will give you everything you need?”

Armitage looked at the helplessly flailing body of the girl reaching in vain for her lightsaber. She could not summon the presence of mind to call it to her hand. He held it firmly under his boot. “I am certain,” he told Kylo. “I know you don’t appreciate pain in the same way as I do, Kylo. But I ask you to prove yourself to me, now, like this.”

Rey’s remaining arm bent backward at the elbow and Armitage felt no further tug at the lightsaber under his foot. She tried to scream. The scream hissed in her crushed throat. The bleeding gape where her eye had been oozed down her face and onto her clothes, but the remaining brown eye rolled in Armitage’s direction, seeming to ask why? How? The stump of left arm and the broken-back right arm both tried to reach for her throat. They always reached for their throats, thought Armitage. Even he had reached for his throat, the time Kylo choked him. It seemed so long ago. So much had changed… He understood things he had never thought could _be_ in those days, now…

But Rey could not change the crushing of her throat, and eventually her arms fell limp at her sides. Her legs gave a few more feeble kicks. Kylo sent her body slamming into the side of the mountain twice. Armitage winced. Half of him said to look away. He wanted to look away. But he needed to watch. He set his jaw and made himself watch, although he gasped and flinched with every impact.

Rey’s legs had stopped kicking, but she still moved, like an insect in the final throes of death by poison. Kylo pinned her to the ground with the Force. His foot was on her throat. His lightsaber flared, where she could see it. He had stepped over Rey’s body. Armitage thought that Kylo made sure Armitage could see his face, looking at Rey’s.

Kylo was no sadist. Armitage knew that if he had been in Kylo’s position and driven by fury or jealousy or a desire to avenge his husband, he could have tortured her and enjoyed it even as the sight of her blood and disfigurement disturbed him. Kylo was not like him. Kylo saw violence as a tool to achieve his ends – but he also did not shrink from blood, or breaking, or the sounds of gurgling breaths, or the sight of insides…

He felt nothing. Armitage saw it on his face.

The tip of the lightsaber slowly descended through Rey’s lower abdomen. She made her final attempt to cry out. Was she cursing Ben Solo? Was she still trying to change him? Was she screaming for help?

Rey stopped moving.

Kylo returned his lightsaber to his belt. His brow creased for a second. He closed his eyes. Armitage knew the look. He could no longer sense a Force signature from the girl. He got off of her throat, lifted her into the air for the last time, and threw her body so far away that neither of them could see where she landed.

Armitage let out the breath he realized he had been holding.

When Kylo looked away from the arc that Rey’s body made, all of the emotion had returned to his face. Whatever Armitage had to say to him, whatever censure or punishment he might receive for his selfishness, he was prepared. He would pay any price.

From the moment they touched, Armitage burying his face in Kylo’s chest and Kylo wrapping his arms tight around Armitage’s shoulder, both of them were crying. Armitage held him tight by the waist. He never wanted to let go again. Never again would Kylo leave his sight. He felt kisses pressed to his forehead and felt a hand stroking his hair. It was not enough. Nothing could ever be enough, not when he knew that he had almost lost him. He had almost lost everything that Kylo taught him, everything that he loved in his life since Kylo became part of it and they learned that they were everything that they had both wanted in their lives and not known where to find it.

“I love you,” Armitage whispered through his tears. “My husband, my hero, I love you…”

“I’m sorry,” Kylo whispered back. “I’m sorry that I came here. I’m sorry that I had to do it. I can’t be perfect, I had to do this… I’m sorry I wouldn’t let you say that you love me. I’m sorry.”

“I needed to say it.” Armitage sniffed and pulled his face away from Kylo’s sweat-soaked, sand-crusted shirt to look into his eyes. Both there. Both beautiful. Both filled with more nobility than could be found anywhere else. “For me. I needed to express it. I love you.”

“I understand that now.” Kylo ran his thumb over Armitage’s cheek. Armitage felt his eyes falling shut, taken by the bliss of feeling Kylo touch him and hearing his voice… but he must not look away. He must never look away from him again.

“I forgive you,” said Armitage.

Kylo kissed him. The filth caking them and both of their clothes, the battle raging far away from them, none of that mattered. Kylo’s lips touched Armitage’s for a moment, and everything was clean between the two of them.

“I… in the beginning… I said that I loved you, but…”

Armitage snorted. “I know.”

“No!” Kylo pleaded, soft. “Don’t laugh. I didn’t love you _yet_. Not truly. I do now.”

“It takes time, doesn’t it.”

“It does. It takes time. But I _wanted_ us to be together. I wanted you so much, I knew what I wanted for us but… that wasn’t love, was it.”

“No.” Armitage smiled. “That was not love. Very good, Kylo. You’re a smart boy.”

“But,” Kylo added. “I’m glad that I said it. I don’t regret anything I did or said. You needed to hear someone say it. You deserved to hear it long before we met. You shouldn’t have had to wait for me to fall in love with you completely.”

“I’ll consider it a pay advance of sorts,” said Armitage, tucking a lock of wet hair behind Kylo’s ear.

“I believed that I was in love with you, and I didn’t stop myself from saying it.” Kylo smiled. “I like that about myself.”

“I like that about you too,” said Armitage. “Thank you for saving me.”

He initiated the next kiss, and Kylo returned it, but a moment later he pulled away and took Armitage’s hands between his. “It’s not over,” he told him. “I have one more thing to do. One more person to face.”

“Your mother?” asked Armitage.

“She’s here,” said Kylo.

“Do you know where she is?”

“No.”

“Can you find her? Can you… sense her?”

Kylo paused and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “I think so. I can find her. I have to, Armitage.”

Armitage kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll go too.”

“To meet your mother-in-law?”

“Of course.”

Kylo smiled, but the prospect of Armitage meeting Leia as her son-in-law did not change his outlook. Armitage could not imagine that this meeting would go well, and he could not imagine that Kylo, even with his boundless optimism, could foresee any outcome that would bring him happiness. Nonetheless, it had to be done. Kylo picked up the two hilts that had dropped to the ground – Anakin Skywalker’s blue lightsaber, and the black one that passed from a slain opponent, to Vader, to Snoke, to Kylo Ren – and carried them on his belt, next to his own red one.

They had to lean on each other as they began their trek across the surface of the planet. “She’s close,” Kylo assured him. “I think she hid herself underground.”

“You’re exhausted,” Armitage scolded.

“It’s almost over,” Kylo insisted. “I have enough strength for this.”

“Then so do I.”

“ _You’re_ exhausted,” said Kylo. “You’re not used to exerting yourself as much as you have.”

“I,” said Armitage, looking at the fake cannon silhouetted on the brown velvet horizon, for they had walked that far. “Have never felt more alive.”

Kylo continued leading them toward the cannon. Its stump was barely visible since most of it was in the gorge constructed by the First Order for the sake of appearance, but Armitage knew he could see it. Armitage contacted Carousco on his com and told him that the Supreme Leader had been found, and to be ready to come fetch them. He would send his coordinates when the time came. Armitage did not explain to Carousco what he and Kylo had left to do, or explain to Kylo that he was the same Lieutenant they decided to spare, or ask about the battle. He had almost forgotten it.

Armitage thought for a few minutes that Kylo was leading them into the mock-up of Starkiller Base’s external weaponry. Normally, the crew of the _Eclipse_ would be here, pretending to conduct business as usual and preparing the weapon to fire. All the Galaxy believed the threat a second Starkiller hung over their heads. Today, Armitage and Kylo instructed them to clear out. Soon, they would announce that there had been no real danger, and everyone would praise the First Order’s leadership as both cunning and benevolent.

…or else they would not last long. Armitage smiled. He and Kylo had the power to silence anyone who doubted him, thanks to one another.

But Armitage did not smile for long. Kylo led them into what once would have been a maw on the floor of the sea. His steps grew confident. Organa must be near. The cave was completely black after a minute of walking. The red lightsaber lit their way. Armitage held Kylo’s arm and drew close to him.

“Nothing lives in here,” Kylo assured him.

“I know that,” snapped Armitage, but the hairs on the back of his neck were still standing up.

Kylo laughed through his nose, but pain stopped him.

“Is your nose broken?” Armitage asked. His voice echoed. The next time he spoke, he lowered it, out of fear that Organa would hear them and shoot both of them before they saw her. She could have anything in here. Seizing the means of weapons manufacturing across the Galaxy had not stopped the Resistance from obtaining arms, ships (old though they might be) and reinforcements. She could blow them all to Hell. She could shoot Armitage and lay into her son and then shoot him too.

“Yeah,” said Kylo.

“ _Shh_.”

“What?”

“ _She’ll hear us_.”

“ _Yes, my nose is broken_.”

“ _Did you set it yourself?_ ”

“ _I think I did a good job_.”

Armitage scoffed. “ _Absolute barbarism_.”

“ _She’ll hear us_.”

“ _Barbarism_ ,” muttered Armitage.

“ _She’d hear us walking_ ,” Kylo pointed out, and Armitage knew he was correct. Armitage huffed and shrugged. Kylo stopped whispering. “She won’t attack us. I don’t feel any anger from her. She’s not angry with me. We’re almost there…”

Deep underground, they stopped. Armitage gripped Kylo’s arm for Kylo’s sake, not his own, because parked in the underground cave was the _Millennium Falcon_.

“Okay,” said Kylo. “Alright. Fine.” He started to board the ship, but Armitage held his arm and pulled him back. “What?”

“Don’t let your emotions carry you away,” Armitage warned him.

“I won’t. Come on. We have to end it.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise.”

“Look at me,” said Armitage. “Promise me. Promise _me_.”

The lights inside of the Falcon were on, but they could not overpower the red glow in which Armitage saw his husband’s worried face. “I promise you, Armitage Hux, that I will not let my emotions carry me away.”

Armitage followed him into the _Falcon_.

“Mother?” Kylo called.

Leia Organa gave no response to her son. Armitage hung a few paces behind him as he crept through the halls of the Falcon and covered his back when he checked the cockpit.

He stopped when Kylo stopped. They had been preparing to search the captain’s quarters of the ship. Over Kylo’s shoulder, Armitage saw a short figure leaning on a cane with unexpected dignity. Leia Organa’s face was unreadable, even perfectly illuminated by the white lights inside the _Falcon_. Kylo said she felt no anger towards her son. Armitage was skeptical. His hand crept toward his blaster, for he saw that in the hand not clutching her cane, Organa held a blaster as well, although she kept it pointed to the ground.

“Mother,” said Kylo.

Again, Organa did not respond. Armitage saw her throat move as she swallowed thickly and jutted her chin forward.

“Mother, the war is over, and the First Order has won.” He spoke to her gently, not gloating, not threatening her. “Your son reigns. I’ve finished what your father started. I’ve brought order and security to the people who live in this Galaxy. I know that you believed in the Republic. I know you thought…” His voice cracked. He gulped, trying to wet his throat. “I know you thought that the Republic could give us those things. But it can’t. It only brought ruin, waste, and division.”

Armitage kept his eyes trained on Organa’s blaster. Her finger twitched. He inhaled sharply. Not yet.

“This is Armitage,” said Kylo. He stretched his arm back to his husband – his right arm, the arm he would use to reach for his lightsaber if a situation escalated. He could reach for one of the other two, but he was still right-handed and he would have perhaps a second to react if she fired at him without warning… Armitage pulled the blaster from its holster as he met Organa’s gaze. Kylo introduced him as Armitage, but Armitage knew that Organa knew him for everything else that he was: Hux. The Grand Marshal. General Genocide. The Starkiller. Brendol’s bastard. The mad son of a mad father. Only Kylo knew _Armitage_. Organa saw her son’s arm around the slaughterer of the Hosnian system, nothing more and nothing less.

“Armitage and I are married,” Kylo explained. “We love each other.”

For the first time, Organa had what Armitage would deem an emotional reaction. Her shoulders rose and fell once with a great breath she drew in and pushed out. Her arm stayed limp at her side. Her finger was not even on the trigger. Yet.

Armitage’s finger was on his trigger.

“I’d like your blessing over our union,” said Kylo. “But I’m not going to demand it, and I want you to know that even if you refuse what I ask of you, I’m going to love him just as passionately as I would have if you blessed us. The three people I love most are here, now. Armitage, you… and myself. I didn’t love myself when I lived as your son, Mother. Now, I do. I’ve learned how. I had to teach myself. It was difficult, I admit that. But I had Armitage’s example to look up to.”

Armitage barely heard a word Kylo said. Organa looked back to her son’s face. They both had brown eyes. Deep. Searching. Organa searched her son for something. Armitage’s heart raced.

“Armitage has been my family when I have had no family. You, Father, Uncle Luke… you all abandoned me. You turned on me. I know, when I was still a boy, you called me a monster. But I don’t want it to be that way. It’s not too late! It’s never too late! It’s not too late for us! You can come back with me and Armitage! He’s your son now, too! Together, we can make everything right! Please, come home with me, Mother! I have already forgiven you! Mother, I have already – !”

Armitage knew what Organa would do a split second before she did it. He saw her hand move and her blaster fire at Kylo as Armitage was squeezing his own trigger. Kylo’s lightsaber was on his belt and Armitage stood on his right side, between his hand and his weapon, meaning Kylo could not reach it in time to deflect the shot. Armitage did not look to see what became of Organa’s fired blaster bolt, but the pulse from Armitage’s blaster threw Organa against the wall of the _Falcon_. She fell from the wall to the floor. Despite her age, she would survive. Armitage watched her body until he saw her back rise and fall twice with breathing, but set his blaster to fire lethal bolts as he watched her lay, just in case.

When he assessed that she posed no further threat he looked at Kylo. A blaster bolt crackled stationary in the air. Kylo held it inches from his face, more disturbed by its presence than by the threat of death. His twitching fingers were spread and cupped under it. It filled his sight.

“No…!” Armitage heard Kylo say. “ _No!_ ”

Armitage pressed his lips together. Not a frown of surprise or sympathy. Not a smile of condolence. A tight expression of discomfort at something he knew to be inevitable. Armitage felt Kylo’s pain in that moment. When he saw his lips beginning to tremble he had to look away.

Leia Organa had fired a lethal blaster bolt at her son.

She tried to shoot him in the face. Kylo had not been caught off guard. The bolt had not hit him. He might have expected it, or he might not – but it did not surprise him enough to kill him, just as it had not surprised Armitage at all. He knew the shot would fire, and so he fired on her. But Kylo, he now knew, probably realized it would fire as well, and yet still came to implore his mother to join him. That hurt Armitage more than anything else.

“ _No!_ ” Kylo said again in a high, shaking voice.

Kylo cast the bolt away from him the way it came. It passed over Leia Organa’s unconscious body and slammed into the far end of the hall. Kylo crouched where he had stood, huddling with his arms wrapped around his torso.

“We have to leave now, Kylo,” Armitage said softly.

He worried that Kylo would argue, but Kylo stood up and stumbled back the way they had come without waiting for Armitage or looking back. Armitage gave a last look at Organa, and then a last look at the burn mark and hole in the wall. Just after he turned to go, he turned back again, because had the sense to take her blaster.

He gave Kylo space as he stormed to the cockpit. When he heard consoles frying and cracking he made his way outside. Kylo soon joined him to slash at the underbelly of the ship. She could not awake and fly it away now. Armitage understood. The ship would be her mausoleum. It would be the mausoleum of something greater, too: a part of Kylo that he had to leave behind.

Kylo flung himself down and drove the fleshy outer side of his fist against the standstone once, then began to bawl. A child, thought Armitage, without disdain. Without contempt. Without hate. Sweet child, he found himself thinking. Kylo cried for his mother. Poor thing. He could leave some of himself here, but he could not leave his childhood behind completely. He would have to carry parts of it, the broken-off parts that he could still believe in and save and patch together, into the future. Armitage would help him.

His recruits cried for their mothers often and the way he regarded them could not have been further from the way he now regarded Kylo. Armitage followed the sound of crying and slowly went to his side, making himself as non-threatening as he could, and knelt.

“It’s me, Kylo… I’m here…”

Kylo felt what he felt. When Armitage cupped his cheek, Kylo leaned into the touch. Tears streamed from his eyes and seeped onto Armitage’s palm. Blood had begun to stream from his nose, and Armitage could smell it. He could do nothing for that. He kissed Kylo’s dirtied, sweating brow. It was all he could do until Kylo composed himself enough to stand up and ignite his lightsaber again.

They put distance between themselves and the _Falcon_. When they emerged above ground and got out of sight of the mouth of the cave, Kylo began to waver in his steps. He could not go on. The two of them let their legs fold and waited for Carousco to reach the set of coordinates that Armitage sent him.

“You’re my whole family now.” Kylo blinked through tears. His nose had started to bleed again. He was losing blood and water. Medbay would help him, but until they could get back to the _Horizon_ Armitage held his hand.

“We’re one another’s whole family now,” Armitage affirmed. Kylo had been his whole family for so long, but it meant more to Kylo. Armitage never had a family to lose.

“Our children will have a better family than either of us did.” Kylo laid his head on Armitage’s shoulder. “The future will lie with them. They’re the ones who will have to leave the Galaxy in our place. We’ll be old men, Armitage. Too old to lead. We must leave it to them.”

“We haven’t even met them yet,” Armitage soothed. “Stay with me, Ren.”

“We’re not going to hit them… we’re not going to call them monsters…”

“Don’t work yourself up anymore. For me.”

Kylo relented. “For you.”

They saw the lights of Carousco’s shuttle in the distance coming to take them home.

“Armitage, my ship…”

“I’ll send someone for it.”

Kylo fell unconscious before he could see who had saved them. Together, Carousco and Armitage heaved him into his seat, strapped him in, and took him from his mother’s final place of rest to the place of rest that he had finally earned.

 


	13. Thirteen

“There was a moment,” said Edrison Peavey. “A distinct moment, when they began to fail. I can’t explain it. They were putting up a decent fight. I had called for reinforcements, in fact. And then suddenly, they weren’t anymore. It was like a string had been cut.”

“How interesting,” said Armitage, who was not interested at all. “Anything else?”

“Dameron called while you were out, Sir.”

“Did he? What did he say? Did you take a message?”

“Not much. And no, we didn’t.”

“Where is he now?”

“He got _shot_ ,” sighed Peavey.

“Hmm,” said Armitage Hux. “Did he.”

“Right out into space, I’m afraid,” said Peavey.

Armitage smiled. “ _Damn_.”

Armitage would have liked to see Poe Dameron at that moment. Not Captain Dameron, not Commander Dameron, not General Dameron or whatever he might have called himself in the end, because he was looking at a hangar full of captured Resistance prisoners, which meant there was no more Resistance for Poe Dameron to hold a rank in.

This was it. The last of them. Nobody was left to resist any longer. Not one member of the First Order reported any escapees. Efforts to find and identify remains in space might begin soon, but they were not at the top of Armitage’s list of priorities. He did not have much of a list of priorities yet. The Supreme Leader was unconscious but recovering in the medical bay, and Armitage would not dream of planning their next move without him.

But Poe Dameron was quite dead, Peavey assured him. Died just before delivering his message for Armitage. In fact, his last words as reported by Peavey were “Well, tell the Grand Marshmallow that – ” Boom. What a shame. Armitage would never hear what was surely the culmination of Dameron’s lifetime of comedic artisanship.

“I’ve won your whole war for you,” said Peavey.

Was he smug, waiting for his recognition, or just pointing out that the war was over? Armitage nodded. “Good work…” He looked Peavey up and down. “…General? General Peavey? Does that suit you?”

“It does, Sir.”

“First Lieutenant Carousco?” He looked to the harried young man at his other side. “How about you?”

“What? Oh,” said Carousco. “Th-thank you, Grand Marshal.”

“It may not seem like much, but if you continue to perform admirably the First Order can anticipate great things for you.” Like an entirely new decoration that Armitage had yet to invent for both of them. “Don’t leave yet,” said Armitage. “Either of you. Not until you’re dismissed.” He did not know what he might want either of them for, and until he dealt with the prisoners he did not wish to bother himself with thinking of it. One thing at a time.

He saw that there were more prisoners here than there had been Resistance fighters at the Battle of Crait. They recruited. The fools. They had signed up to die for the lies of the Republic, rather than live for the glory of the First Order. He saw humans and some _things_ he did not care to identify. He also saw a Ferroan. A couple of Twi’leks.

Notable, that he did not see a Wookiee, and as he understood it there perhaps ought to have been a Wookiee present. Kylo would have liked it if Armitage – with the help of their forces, of course! – could have brought him the Wookiee, in the way that Armitage would have liked to see Dameron. He inquired about a Wookiee, and there was no report of seeing one out in the vacuum, or of any Wookiees attempting to board the _Horizon_ (for some reason, a sizeable number the Resistance had been intent to board the _Horizon_ ). It could not, on either account, be helped.

But most importantly, he saw two humans near the front, huddled together.

All of the prisoners were “huddled together” in a sense, in that they were all wearing binders that connected to one chain with little space between them. But these two were clearly friends. His pleasant, if very tired, smile broadened. Perhaps Kylo knew more than Armitage gave him credit for, droning on about fate if Armitage ever gave him half a chance. These two survived.

The female, with her fat, scrunched face all red and wet with tears, clutched at the necklace she still wore. A memento of her homeworld in the Otomok system. How quaint. How sentimental. How noble. She would be absolutely useless for doing anything but blubbering.

The male did not notice that Grand Marshal Hux had graced them with his presence until that moment. The whites of his eyes stood out as his expression widened into one of panic and he desperately tried to put his body between Armitage and the mechanic girl.

“That man,” said Armitage, pointing him out to two Stormtroopers. “Keep him in his binders, but separate him from the others and bring him to me. And you,” he said to another. “Inform all of our troops and officers to secure all of our ships and equipment to the floor, then to leave this hangar immediately. No, no, come back. Secure. Do you understand me? Completely secure. Go.”

His orders were carried out at once. The girl howled _no! no!_ as the Stormtroopers dragged FN-2187 away. In the crowd of her allies and companions, she was alone. Armitage chuckled. He had no idea who these particular Stormtroopers were. They could have been FN-2187’s comrades. FN-2187 might have killed his former squadmates in battle.

“FN-2187,” he greeted the traitor. His smile never wavered. “What a pleasure it is to see you again.”

FN-2187 hovered between stoicism and rage.

“Follow me,” said Armitage, gesturing to the Stormtroopers to escort the prisoner, and also gesturing to Peavey and Carousco.

In the corridor that surrounded the hangar, the soldiers forced FN-2187 to his knees. Armitage had only led them just outside the door, which sealed shut behind them. The only thing that might get through would be especially loud noises, which the prisoners began to make when they realized that the Stormtroopers had switched from menacing them to ignoring them in favor of fixing everything to a solid surface to the point that it would not budge – except for them.

“FN-2187,” said Armitage. He pronounced each digit in with spitting articulation, which came out as more “F. N. Two. One. Eight. _Seven_. Well! Here we are again.”

FN-2187 still did not dignify Armitage with a response. Rude, but Armitage chose to excuse it. He was, after all, only treacherous Resistance scum. The two men took stock of one another. Armitage would have liked to menace him (and everyone else) in a crisp, shining white uniform, but a sweaty, dirtied uniform that was hanging open at the top would have to do.

“Is she your girl?” he asked.

“No,” said FN-2187. “She’s my _friend_.”

“Ah,” said Armitage. “Friends. I had those, once. Sort of. Actually, I took you aside to inquire as to whether you happened to see one of mine. Do you recall when you and your _friends_ infiltrated one of _my_ ships?”

FN-2187 sighed through his nose.

“I seem to recall that one of yours sold you out to us – but let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about Captain Phasma.”

“Phasma was not your friend.”

“I don’t think you have any authority to make that decision.”

“Phasma was – ”

“Do you think I don’t know what she was?”

“She… she was the…”

FN-2187 trailed of in resignation and did not offer up any further information about Phasma, which confirmed Armitage’s suspicions. The damage to Phasma’s helmet, the way and location in which her body was found…

“You were with Phasma directly before the _Raddus_ flew _through_ the _Supremacy_ ,” Armitage said quietly. If he had not spoken quietly, he would have flown into a violent rage. “I turned my back on you for a few moments and the next time I saw Phasma she was dead. All of your friends are in that hangar, Finn – they call you Finn, don’t they? All of your friends are in that hangar, Finn, and my men have tied down everything but them. I can open the barrier that keeps that hangar safe. I am all that stands between the last of the Resistance and _annihilation_.” He loved that word. He spoke it like an incantation. “I am going to ask you one more time. How did Captain Phasma die?”

FN-2187 only hesitated long enough to draw in a long breath. “I woke up,” he said. “The _Raddus_ had rammed the _Supremacy_. There was fire…”

“I remember that,” said Armitage.

“There was a shootout,” said FN-2187.

“Was there,” said Armitage.

“I looked behind me,” said the traitor. “And there was Phasma.”

“And so?”

“And so… we fought.”

“And who won?”

“I… won. I won.”

Armitage nodded. “Thank you. Are you surprised? Don’t be. It’s a _war_ ,” he said, as though war were something simple and absolute. “In war, sometimes, things like this happen. Sometimes, our friends die. That’s our lot in life, isn’t it? One of your friends died today. I was there. The one called Rey. My husband killed her.”

FN-2187 looked confused, then disgusted.

“Does it bother you that I call him my husband?” Armitage snapped before he could stop himself, and FN-2187 could not think of what response he might want. “My husband, my beautiful, exotic flower that grew from rocks and blooms among thousands of weeds. Does that offend your _anarchic_ sensibilities? Or do you think either of us is unworthy of the other?!”

“Oh, you’re definitely worthy of each other.” FN-2187 seemed to forget for a few seconds that Armitage had his friends at his mercy. “I can’t think of a better match for either of you two. Congratulations. I’m just confused as to why you said he killed Rey, because I don’t believe Rey’s dead.”

“She’s dead,” Armitage said flatly.

“You’re lying,” said FN-2187, and it was not a panicked defense against a horrific truth. He found the truth so unbelievable that Armitage could only be lying or else just _wrong_. “I would know if Rey was dead. She’s not dead.”

“How would you know such a thing?!”

“Would you know if your…” Although he claimed it did not bother him, he could not say the word himself. “…if Kylo Ren was dead?”

“ _Oh_ ,” said Armitage. “I _see_. I have no idea, to be honest. But I’m inclined to think that I would not, since you are clearly incorrect. However, I also know that it does not matter, because even if you were right, you will never see her again. Excuse me.”

He excused himself not to leave them, but to step aside to the keypad next to the entrance to the hangar. This ship belonged to Armitage. He had every single security code memorized backwards and forwards, so he barely had to think while entering one that was thirty digits long. His fingertip rested on the button to activate it. Armitage closed his eyes and pushed the button. The barrier separating the interior of the hangar from the vacuum of space flickered out. He kept his eyes shut while he counted slowly to five, pushed the button once more, then opened them again.

When he returned to the business at hand, nobody spoke. Nobody screamed. Carousco’s mouth hung open as he stared at Armitage. Peavey had his mouth pressed into a grim line, not surprised, not disappointed, but also not pleased by the realities of war. The Stormtroopers had on their helmets, so their faces remained hidden. FN-2187 was in shock. He stared through the window into the hangar, now purged of all sentients.

“Your girl,” said Armitage. “Is dead. Your friends are dead. You’re also going to be dead, soon, but it will be no concern of mine. You’re going to the most obscure, ruinous, wretched mining planet that _First Lieutenant_ Carousco here can find to stick you on – did you hear that, Carousco? That was an order, I hope you were paying attention. You’re going to work there, toiling, slaving, thinking about everything you did and everything you’ve lost _every single day until you die_! And meanwhile, you’re going to never have existed! _Finn_ never existed! FN-2187 _never existed_! I’m going to wipe you out of history! I will _personally_ sift through every _single mention of you_ everywhere in the First Order’s records and _destroy you_!”

He had begun with snide gloating, but ended up roaring down at FN-2187’s – no, not FN-2187, the prisoner, just _the prisoner_ , FN-2187 was already as good as erased! – face as he approached the word _die_.  Carousco’s face was pale. Even Peavey looked truly afraid of Brendol Hux’s son for the first time, and Armitage had become too frightening, too enraged, too much of a monster to relish it.

“You!” he went on, his voice ragged with the force behind it. “Represent the one failure of the First Order’s Stormtrooper program! The only one! You are a failure of my father, not me! But I am not my father! I will not fail! I will use his failure – I will _use you_ to ensure that there is never another of you!”

He could no longer see the terrified, furious face in front of him. The prisoner had begun to roar back something that Armitage could not make out. His vision had gone red. When he tried to dismiss his soldiers, he might have tripped over his words. When he tried to spin on his heel, he felt like he spun downwards into an abyss. The tumult of the final battle against the Resistance had caught up with him. Someone might have caught him. He might have hit the wall. He only knew, and only cared, that he lived.

He was rising up, up, up, and he saw his body slumped on the floor in his ruined uniform with his head thrown back laughing and Peavey nearby calling for medical assistance. Armitage did not worry. He knew he was perfectly fine and that nothing was wrong with him.

He kept rising. His soul left his body. He could have used this during the times when his body, so weak and hindering, craved rest. But those times had ended.

Armitage realized that his _self_ was travelling to meet Kylo’s while their bodies were recovering. It could have been a hallucination, he thought for a second. But then he heard the voice in his mind, as soothing and soft and sweet as it had ever been when they lay together in the darkness together, and he knew that it was real.

 _Kylo!_ he called to him, hoping to hear in response the voice that would tell him everything he felt was real _._ His name was like a prayer now.

 _Armitage_ , Kylo answered _._ A blessing.

_Kylo, I did it!_

_Yes, Armitage. You did._

 

On the outskirts of Salline City on the planet Chandrila, a small cottage stuck out of the seaside as though someone drove it into the ground on the end of a stake. It stood in isolation from the city on a swath of privately owned beach – although who knew how long _that_ would last. Then again, the Supreme Leader might commandeer some small indulgence for himself. Having begun with his marriage to his Grand Marshal, which pretended at a state of political alliance but in truth was the realization of a long-held, persistent infatuation on the Supreme Leader’s part, he was on the slippery slope toward a life of full-on decadence and degeneracy – although a little rustic cottage by the sea with a white wooden fence around it could not be further removed than the sky-scraping suite they selected for their last Chandrilan escapade.

They were on their second attempt at a honeymoon.

They had gotten married again in the dead of night. It was Armitage’s idea, spontaneously announced and asked of his husband a few hours after he woke in the medical bay, then granted without hesitation by Kylo. Already being legally wed, they did not need witnesses the second time. They needed only to exchange vows.

Kylo took him to the crystal caves north of Hanna City, where they stationed Stormtroopers outside to guard them and entered the darkness of the crystal sanctuary from the dark outdoors. Except for their guards the second wedding bore no trace of the First Order, not even Armitage’s uniform. It was only the two of them kneeling with one small light reflected in the facets of the cave, pledging their love and devotion across the stars and into the infinite.

The second attempt at a honeymoon went significantly better than their first.

In the little cabin by the sea, Armitage Hux wore his garters, his socks, the boots he wore to his only visit to the unapologetic cesspool Canto Bight used to be, and a healthy flush. A riding crop, with its handle clutched in delicate white-gloved fingers, smacked against the palm of his other glove. It would not be used to inflict pain. Not this time. He had the delicate white cap bearing the mark of the First Order – his mark, therefore, and Kylo’s mark – perched on his head.

Kylo Ren waited for him. He sat on the edge of the bed, as his Master ordered – legs apart, hands touching the sheets on either side of his body. He could clutch, pull, and twist as he liked, but he must keep his hands to himself. Even as he received his reward for pleasing Armitage he must obey… at least, as long as they agreed Armitage was the one in charge. Tomorrow, they would switch, and Kylo could take whatever he wanted. That was how the game worked. But this time, Armitage wished to reward him, and he had told him so. The memory of it sent a flush over Kylo’s pale skin that matched Armitage’s.

Also matching something of Armitage’s was the thick ring of black around his neck. It was the final seal of the contract they made so long ago. They belonged to each other forever.

“My perfect, precious boy…”

Kylo’s blush deepened. Armitage approved of him. Armitage looked upon him and found no fault.

“Sweet boy. Dearest heart.” The end of the crop pressed beneath Kylo’s chin, prompting him to raise his head and look at Armitage. “You are everything, and I love you.”

He had found what had been denied to him for so many years, and he knew that he would never lose it again. Armitage loved him and only him. Nothing could take Armitage away. Armitage would not allow himself to be taken away. Over anything and everything else that existence would offer him, he would choose Kylo.

“I am so proud of you.” Armitage smoothed Kylo’s hair. “You fought so hard. You were so brave.”

And he had won.

“Do you wish to speak?” Armitage asked.

“Yes, please,” said Kylo.

“Then you may,” said Armitage.

“May I ask a question, Sir?”

“You may have anything it is in my power to give you,” said Armitage. “I have brought you here to reward you.”

“Am I the only man you’ve ever loved?”

Armitage laughed. “Yes. There has never been anyone else.” Kylo was the man who Armitage knew he would meet one day, in his teenage years, when he held his head high in defiance of the life that told him he would never find companionship as he wanted. Both of them knew it now.

“To hear myself described this way… comforts me,” said Kylo. “I feel safe. I feel secure. I feel sure of the future. Knowing that you’re mine, and only mine, is the greatest gift I could ever receive. Thank you.”

“Very astute,” said Armitage, patting Kylo on the head. “You call it a gift, and not a reward, because that is not your reward. I give you that freely, as I will for the rest of my life. Can you guess what your reward is, my sweetheart?”

Kylo let his eyes roam over Armitage’s naked body, pale and slim and tempting him to commit unforgivable transgressions, starting at his collar and falling gradually to the boots Armitage remembered his fondness for. “I cannot possibly, Sir.”

“Do not lie to me, Kylo.”

“I…” Kylo glanced over him again.

“It’s not a trick.” He sounded exasperated.

“I’m guessing that you’re going to sit on my cock, Sir.”

“Close!” said Armitage. “Very close. I’m actually going to bend over this bed and allow you to penetrate me. Yes, I am, don’t look so shocked. You’ve done something that warrants such a reward. But you will keep your hands to yourself until I instruct you otherwise, do you understand?”

“I understand, Sir.”

The untouchable pale softness beneath Kylo arched just as Kylo had taught him to. Armitage pressed his body against the bed with his arms extended across it. He still held the riding crop. His fingers tightened around it as Kylo entered him. Kylo’s hands pressed into the mattress on either side of him, holding Kylo up and away from Armitage’s body. Armitage kept himself subdued to quiet little gasps and moans. Kylo knew that Armitage held back. Armitage wanted to be ruined, but more than that he wanted to hover on the edge of ruination, to feel Kylo hanging over him but not taking what was so ready and willing and helpless to stop him.

“You may touch me, if you want…”

…said Armitage’s voice. His mind screamed _take me, hold me down, do it._ Kylo lowered himself onto one arm and cupped Armitage’s delicate shoulder. He kissed it, moved his hand under Armitage’s chest, let his own chest press against Armitage’s back…

Armitage dropped the riding crop. He reached behind and over him to clutch the collar around Kylo’s neck. Until then, Kylo had been the one slowly, carefully thrusting into a passive body, like Armitage was a doll – _his_ doll – and might break. The slimmer pair of hips pounded back into his. The sweet voice swore and grunted. It turned rough and ragged. It ordered Kylo to ruin him. It screamed his name when the last of Armitage’s inhibition fell away and he could no longer do anything but enjoy what belonged to him – and he told Kylo that he did. Only to him. His. His. _His_ …

 

On Cantonica, masters had become slaves and slaves, masters.

Children who had once lived in fear of the whip now carried electric stun batons and used them on the adults who once intimidated them if they failed to work hard or fast enough. The whole city of Canto Bight had to be broken down and built back up as something better. Better, in this case, referred to something that benefitted the First Order and therefore the rest of the Galaxy.

“Do you see what the First Order has done for you and your friends? Your life is so much better now than it was before we liberated the Galaxy from the cruel, plutocratic regime of the New Republic. You don’t need to be afraid of being hit anymore, or of not having enough to eat, or of being trampled by the… um… what are they called?”

“Fathiers.”

“Yes, the fathiers. Thank you, dearest. It slipped my mind for a second.”

The boy, who was a human and whose name was Temiri Blagg, looked at the two men who had arrived in a shuttle just to see him. One of them had shaggy dark hair, and he did not talk to Temiri much. The other one had slicked-back hair that was a remarkable shade of orange. The boy had never seen anything quite so orange before. They were both tall, being grown-up humans, but the one with the orange hair was slightly shorter. The other called the first, interchangeably, “dearest”, “darling”, “Supreme Leader”, and “Kylo”. The first called him, infallibly, “Armitage”. He had not recognized them at first sight because they were not wearing any First Order insignia or uniforms, but they came with Stormtroopers, and Temiri knew who Kylo Ren was.

Armitage Hux did almost all of the talking. He crouched next to Temiri and smiled as they looked over the deteriorating seaside city from the top of a cliff, but the smile never quite reached his eyes. He told him all about how much better his life was than it had been before the First Order assumed full control of the Galaxy and the last influences of the horrible Republic over the lives of Temiri and his friends had been alleviated.

“Try ‘stopped’,” advised Kylo Ren.

…had been put a stop to. And he told the boy about how much happier his friends were, and how if he went up into space with them, he could come back and visit them, sometimes. The boy would have to choose for himself, without asking his friends. Such a thing was only right.

“You see,” Armitage Hux explained. “You possess abilities that most creatures do not possess. You hold within you the same power that the Supreme Leader holds. You can grow up to be strong, and brave, and a hero, just like him! He can teach you how to use your power to benefit you and your friends and lots of other people that you haven’t even met yet. Isn’t that exciting? And not only that, but Kylo and I will be like your parents. How do you like that?”

The Supreme Leader and Grand Marshal for parents? Exciting, indeed. Or it should have been, as far as Armitage Hux was concerned. But the boy shook his head. Armitage stood – he was now thirty-seven years old and his legs were getting sore – and tilted his head in inquiry. He was not angry. “Why not? What else is bothering you, child?”

As far as Temiri Blagg was concerned, he was already strong, and brave, and a hero, and it showed in the way he pushed his shoulders back and extended his hands toward Armitage. The benevolent expression quickly turned to a sneer when he saw what was in the boy’s hands. It was a ring, revealing the insignia of the Resistance. As quickly as the expression of anger smeared itself across Armitage’s face, it vanished and he pulled together a semblance of calm again. Temiri was not fooled. He pocketed the ring and stood with his fists clenched at his side.

Kylo Ren had seen the ring and his lightsaber was already alight.

“Wait.” Armitage caught the Supreme Leader’s arm.

“We can’t,” said Kylo.

“We must,” said Armitage. “He could be saved.”

“You know that no-one can be saved,” said Kylo, gently. “Not even my mother could be saved.”

“That is true,” said Armitage. “Your family, my father… but my mother, even though neither of us ever knew her… you don’t know about her, Kylo. She still existed. She might have been able to be saved. She might have joined us if she had the chance.”

Kylo kept looking at Temiri. His hand clutched the lightsaber.

“And…” Realization dawned on Armitage. “Me. Me, Kylo, what about me? I was saved. You saved me. Think of what you had to overcome to make me see everything for what it really is. It can happen. Let me try to teach him.”

The lightsaber returned to Kylo Ren’s belt. Fearfully, Temiri looked back and forth between the two of them. He had expected that he would be flung off the cliff or cut down with the lightsaber – but all that happened was that his world went black and he plopped to the ground asleep.

Armitage breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“No,” said Kylo. “Thank _you_ , for helping me. I don’t want to kill any of them. The more of them we can recruit to the First Order, the better. Every one we have to kill counts as a failure.”

“I swear to you,” said Armitage. “That I will teach our son, and teach him well. I had been thinking of what to put in their conditioning already. I can record it once we’re off this rock.”

Kylo looked at the boy sleeping on the ground. “He’s ours,” he said. “That’s our _son_ , now. One day… we might entrust the Galaxy to him… Armitage, I…”

“I know.” Armitage smiled. “I know, Kylo.”

Kylo looked at Armitage, enraptured anew. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Without a word, one of the Stormtroopers lifted the boy, and the whole squadron of them stood ready to follow their commanders. Kylo held Armitage close. Armitage kissed him. With his hand on the back of Kylo’s neck, Armitage kept their foreheads pressed to one another’s for a moment. The two of them returned to their shuttle together.

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the-heauxly-trinity-ao3.tumblr.com
> 
> I can't believe I'm the first person to use the "Kylo Wins" tag.


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